Parenting Styles and Their Effect on Child Development Outcomes

Abstract

A parent’s interactions with his/her child have shown to have a significant impact on a variety of child and adolescent outcomes in the areas of cognitive development and education, externalizing behaviors, internalizing behaviors and personality development. Teaching parents how to negotiate power shifts during the two challenging developmental periods of preschool and adolescence may have especially significant long-term effects. This paper provides a comprehensive literary review examining the Authoritative, Authoritarian, Permissive Indulgent, and Permissive Neglectful parenting styles. A thorough review of peer reviewed articles addressing topics of parenting styles and their effect on child developmental outcomes resulted in 23 studies from 1966 to 2012. Future research is needed to examine parent’ child relationships in the context of the ecological viewpoint and to consider other variables of the school setting, the child’s age, gender, differing parenting styles, community environment, child and parent personality and how they are related to parenting style choices and overall child development outcomes. This information can aide counselors, clinicians, and educators who work directly with parents and families of young children and adolescents, so they are better able to teach about developmentally appropriate parenting practices that will support positive outcomes in young children.