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Mercedes Macarena-Galloway

Professor Malcolm Campbell

UWRT 1104

18 September 2019

Topic Proposal: Parenting Advice from an 18-year-old

Introduction/Overview

I am interested in learning about the different types of parenting styles (authoritarian,

authoritative, permissive and uninvolved) and how much influence parents have on their

children, given their parenting styles. These are the four types of parenting styles according to

Parenting for Brain, a science-based and easy to understand website for parents. Authoritarian

parents have high demands of their children and low responsiveness. Although they have high

expectations, they do not provide much feedback in the way of achieving those high standards.

Authoritative parents are responsive to their child’s emotional needs and have high standards.

They are warmer and more responsive when compared to authoritarian parents. On the other

hand, permissive parents have a more relaxed parenting style. They require little from their

children; they’re more responsive than they are confrontational. Lastly, the uninvolved parenting

style is often related to neglectful parenting. These parents have few demands of their child and

are not very responsive.

The debate over parenting styles and their effects on children began in the 1960’s.

Clinical and developmental psychologist Diane Baumrind, first piqued an interest in parenting

styles while observing different behaviors among preschoolers. She believed each child’s

behavior was directly correlated to their relationship with their parents. After much observation

and interviews, Baumrind identified three types of parenting styles (authoritarian, authoritative
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and permissive). It wasn’t until 1983 when Elanor Maccoby, chair of the department of

psychology at Stanford University and John Martin, graduate of both Harvard and Stanford

Universities, introduced a fourth parenting style known as uninvolved (Parenting for Brain).

I will be examining the immediate and long-term effects of the four main parenting

styles. There are countless debates over how much parents effect their children. According to the

Annual Review of Psychology, an annual peer-review journal covering clinical psychology, in the

1980’s, a weak correlation between parenting styles and their child’s behavior was observed.

This data was collected from one source. They conducted interviews between the parent(s) and

child to get the data. Today, developmental psychologists gather information from multiple

sources such as teachers, school records, the child’s peers, etc. According to the American

Psychological Association, most developmental psychologists agree that the authoritative

parenting style is the best style but to what extent does this style affect the development of a

child. Studies have shown that one parent’s behavior may have different effects on different

children. For example, kids of different ages, sex, temperament, etc. may be affected in

contrasting ways.

The Society for Research in Children Development, a non-profit professional association

with over 5000 researchers, states: “General parenting styles and specific parenting practices

continue to shape the development of adolescent competence, especially in the area of

educational achievement. Yet, our understanding of the processes through which parenting styles

influence adolescent development remains limited”. Although parenting styles have been

observed and established, they were only used to observe how the family functions, only recently

have they been used to observe the impact on children.

To learn more about my topic, I first started by sitting down and writing questions that

could help me find specific information on my topic. After that, I went to Google. It led to me

many scholarly articles with publishers such as Science Direct and Emerald Insight. Also, I went

to the library’s website and went to the specific databases in attempt to find psychological

databases. I found databases such as PsycINFO and PsycTESTS. The debate over which

parenting style is the best and how it affects children occur on health websites such as

Verywellmind.com and Melbournechildpsychology.com.

Initial Inquiry Question(s)

long-term effects of each parenting style? How much do parents actually affect their children? Is

there a certain parenting style that produces the most straight A students, criminals, doctors,

lawyers? Can switching to a “better” parenting style reverse the effects of the previous parenting

style?

My Interest in this Topic

examine the impact parents have on their children. In high school I took a psychology class

which piqued my interest in the developing mind. Also, I have two younger brothers who are

experiencing a different type of parenting style than I did. I mainly grew up with my mom who

has a permissive parenting style. On the other hand, my brothers are being raised by both my

mom and their dad (my stepdad) who is more on the authoritarian side. I got a little taste of the

authoritarian parenting during the tail end of my childhood, from my stepdad, but I am curious to
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find out if there will be much difference in the way my brothers are projected to turn out versus

me, since that’s all they’ve ever known and I was introduced to it later on in life.

Next Steps
To conduct more research on my topic, I will begin using the library databases (such as

PsycINFO and PsycTESTS) to find articles on the different types of parenting styles and their

effects on children. Also, I will use the Developmental Psychology Journal which was published

by the American Phycological Association. Lastly, I will use scholarly articles such as The

Journal of Psychology and Psychological Review.