There are numerous ways to raise children and many styles of parenting, so if you haven’t yet decided how you wish to raise your children so they grow up happy, healthy, and self-confident, keep in mind that there are many styles available to you right now. Some parents are stricter than others, but it can be difficult to learn how strict is too strict or what is considered too lenient. The following information can help.

Parenting the Authoritative Way

Some of the most common parenting styles used by today’s parents include permissive, uninvolved, and authoritative. Permissive parenting includes a warm but lax style of parenting that typically results in kids who are impulsive and aggressive and have little self-control. Uninvolved parenting usually involves unresponsive and uninterested parents and can produce children who have low self-esteem and little self-confidence.

On the other hand, authoritative parenting is parenting that includes being nurturing and supportive but setting strict limits at the same time. Parents who are authoritative always listen to the child’s point of view, but they don’t necessarily adhere to it. These kids tend to grow up friendly, confident, cooperative, and with a desire to achieve.

Why Use the Authoritative Style?

To be sure, using the authoritative type of parenting results in adults who other adults enjoy being around because they are confident and get along great with others. It is not always easy, but it’s the type of parenting that most kids find easier to respond to in the end.

If you’re interested in this style of parenting, here are a few things to keep in mind:

• Let your kids express their opinions
• Place limits and consequences on the kids’ behaviors
• Make sure that discipline is consistent but fair
• Encourage your kids to be independent
• Let kids express different options to the situation
• Always be nurturing and warm
• Make sure that you always listen to your kids

Keep in mind that authoritative is not the same as authoritarian. The former allows the child to be independent and express their concerns and opinions without worry about repercussions. The latter usually includes a focus on punishing kids’ mistakes and a very strict atmosphere, without being truly involved in the child’s life.

If you’ve overly strict but show no real interest to nurture the child and encourage their independence, you get unpleasant results. You get much better results when kids feel encouraged to be themselves and to grow emotionally but still feel like you care about what’s happening in their lives. It may sound like there’s a fine line between the two styles, but that isn’t really the case.

Top Tips for New Parents

If the authoritative style of parenting is the style you’ve chosen, here are a few tips that you can follow to make it work for you:

• Encourage kids to think for themselves and be independent even if they make mistakes. If they do make mistakes, allow them to experience the natural consequences that follow because this can help them learn and grow.
• It isn’t enough to have rules; instead, those rules need to be clearly communicated so they are clear in the kids’ minds. They should know exactly what their expectations and boundaries are regardless of the situation.
• Always concentrate on your relationship with the child and put it first. Strengthen the relationship and make sure that they always feel supported regardless of what they are doing. Never control every single thing they do.
• Make it clear what your expectations are and what will happen when those expectations are not met. If you have to discipline them, make sure you follow through with the punishment you established in the beginning.
• Concentrate on always exhibiting warmth, support, compassion, empathy, and care. Kids react much better to rules and even discipline when they realize that deep inside, you love them and care about their well-being.

With this style of parenting, you shouldn’t be either too strict or too lenient. You have to be somewhere in the middle. It is also a style of parenting that lets kids see you not just tell them how you want them to act, but lets them see models of the behaviors in their own parents’ lives. This is good for the kids because they’ll know that you are “practicing what you preach.”

New moms and dads are used to getting both solicited and unsolicited advice, but if you’re going to give any type of parenting advice to new parents, keep in mind that the authoritative type of parenting is one of the best, according to a lot of experts. Parenting is hard these days, in part because both kids and adults show signs of exactly how they were raised, and that can be either good or bad.

Each family is different, but one thing is certain: you can’t go wrong when you use support, encouragement, care, and empathy, and you combine these things with the right types of discipline that you always follow through with when the situation arises. The authoritative style of parenting seems to be the best one for these and many other reasons when it comes to raising kids.

Conclusion

Rather than raising your kids using a permissive or uninvolved type of parenting, the authoritative type works much better. It is neither too strict nor too lenient, but it includes a very supportive environment that encourages a child’s independence and creativity while letting them know that there will be consequences for certain actions. You’ll be offering compassion while setting boundaries that they’ll know they have to follow at all times.