Unit 1: Parenting Styles You May Encounter
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Advance to: Unit 2: Why Are Parents Not Involved?
Objective: Participants can distinguish the difference between the four parenting styles
To do: Download the Unit 1 Google Doc by opening it and going to File - Download. Use this to complete the specified activities as we go along.
Remembering Our Parents
Think back to your childhood. What were your parents or caregivers like? How were they different from your friends' parents? Who had the strictest parents? Can you recall friends that were allowed to do whatever they wanted, with whomever? These parental attributes you may have just thought of can include things like:
- child punishment
- level of parental involvement
- parent-child relationship
- parental guidance
These differences we notice in what our parents or our friends' parents "allowed" us to do is an effect of their parenting style. Parenting styles can influence many things, aside from discipline or lack thereof. Parenting styles can actually have an affect on a students' success in school which is why learning these styles is of interest to educators and psychologists.
We are going to use the following document to recall the types of parents we have encountered in our life and record them in the document you can find here. You will also find a visual which breaks apart the 4 parenting styles on page 2 of the document. Please download the document and type your answers.
The Different Styles
You now have some good adjectives that can describe the different parenting styles. Why are these styles important? Well, unfortunately it can influence how a student does academically in school and how likely their parent is to be involved in the school community. "Children raised with authoritative discipline tend to be happy and successful" (Morin, 2019). This is not to say that children of other parents are not and cannot be happy or successful. In fact, some children (typically higher achieving students) are successful in spite of their parents. However, this does not happen for every child. Children in the middle to lower achieving category are most affected by factors at home (Partin, 2017, p. 20).
Most children with a(n) authoritative parent(s) are taught responsibility from a young age which is an important value when it comes to education and learning. View the graphic below and imagine the best environment for completing school assignments.
Did you choose one of the top two styles? While Authoritative parents probably force their children to do homework, what would happen if the parent was not around to enforce the rules? Would the child still complete the homework? Or sigh in relief that the rules are absent? It is the responsibility that Authoritarian parents instill in their children that best prepares their child(ren) for success.
Think responsibility is not one of the most crucial traits of a good student? Well imagine your best student coming to class without his or her pencil. They also forgot their homework that was due today. Not only that, but they were a few minutes late to class. See, the term "good student" and those 3 events are hard to match up in our head. We know that our better (meaning higher-achieving) students are the ones that are responsible enough to grab a writing instrument before heading into class, are organized enough to keep their papers together, and can manage their time in the hallway between classes effectively. These actions are a result of being responsible. When a student is responsible, they are able and ready to learn.
Check for Understanding
Complete the Google Form to see if you've mastered the 4 types of parenting styles! Upon completion, your score will be displayed and you will see the correct answers.
Advance to: Unit 2: Why Are Parents Not Involved?