Week 5

Week 5 Blog entry: Parenting styles 

This weeks reading was very interesting to me. I learned a lot about the different parenting styles by watching the video on You Tube titled "Parenting Style" along with the text book reading covering the dimensions and styles of parenting. The four parenting styles are Authoritarian, Authoritative, Permissive and Uninvolved parenting. I discovered by watching the You Tube video that I fall into the category of Authoritative. I identified how my parenting techniques and skills are affecting my daughter as she is growing up. Being an authoritative parent combines showing who is in control, along with showing a lot of  love and having very good communication  with your child. An authoritative parent knows how to have clear rules in place and also the ability to discus why those rules are so important, this gives the child a better understanding of what is expected of them. I would like to read more about this type of parenting style and how it affects older children, I can only imagine it will get a bit tougher as my daughter grows older. If I could discuss this parenting style with the person that came up with the different definitions, I would ask them how they determined that this type of parenting style is shown to be the best way of parenting, and would like to know more about the research behind their thoughts. As I read and studied this type of parenting style I felt proud that I follow this style very heavily with the way I am raising my own daughter.  I find that being a parent has high expectations, how are we as parents supposed to know what's the best way to raise our children without a parents manual. Unfortunately we have to wing it and hope for the best outcome for our children. After reading a bit more about this topic, I feel more confident that I am choosing the best parenting style, I will continue to strive to keep on good handle on this approach as I know I will be more and more challenged as my daughter grows up.