The Big Answer

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The Society for the Advancement of Education has published the following conclusions about parenting: Authoritative parenting works better than any other type. Parents should be good examples to emulate, modeling acceptable behavior rather than coercing it—parents should never resort to physical discipline. Rules should be fair and consistent. Kids should be well nurtured and cared for. Parents should not use discipline methods that were used on them just because that’s what happened to them. Instead, they should use what works. Rules should be discussed with kids before they are mutually agreed upon. Privileges should be increased as responsible behavior increases. Finally, consequences (these include natural and logical types) should be kids’ major learning tools.

For other study results involving the comparison of authoritative parenting and other types of parenting styles, see these authors on our website: Gauvain, Baumrind, Maccoby, Lewis, Aunola, Brassington, Hill, Larzelere, Shucksmith, Chao, Ramsey, Strage, Peterson, Fletcher, Gray, Steinberg, Lamborn, Society for the Advancement of Education, Johnson Publishing Company Inc., Berg, Snowden, McIntyre, and Slicker. Then see these books: (and the references in the back) Gordon’s Discipline That Works and Alvy’s Parent Training Today. Then see our comments on books and/or articles by these authors: Lakoff, Gould, Pugh, Critzer, Popkin, Dinkmeyer, Gordon, Faber, Dreikurs, Solter, Prinz, Kvols, and Nelsen, keeping in mind that this is just the first author listed—many works have more authors and these are listed as well in each of our references. Finally, check out the real courses (begin with Internet searches) that teach various forms of authoritative and democratic parenting, like P.E.T., STEP, Winning Family Lifeskills, Positive Parenting, Positive Discipline, Redirecting Children’s Behavior, the Ginott method (see our comments on the Faber and Mazlish book Liberated Parents Liberated Children), Dreikur’s democratic parenting (see our comments on his Happy Children book), and Active Parenting.