While rummaging around on adoption.com I ran across this article on Parenting Style and Its Correlates. Although the research is around 15 years old and many parenting experts define the “types” of parents differently, the information is incredibly valid.

These researchers, typed parenting styles into Authoritarian (high demand; low nurture), Indulgent (high nurture; low demand), Authoritative (high demand; high nurture), and Uninvolved (low demand; low nurture).

For anyone who has taken child development courses, read parenting books or otherwise learned about the parent-child relationship, it’s no surprise that the children raised by Authoritative parents faired the best, both in school performance, as well as behaviors, social skills and lack of depression. Children with uninvolved parents faired the worst. Overindulged children were more likely to exhibit behavior problems and have poor school performance. Children whose authoritarian parents ruled with an iron fist were more likely to have poor social skills and suffer from depression.

And these are the supposedly healthy kids. The degree of difficulty is multiplied when a child has special needs. It is multiplied a few hundred of times when the child has been previously abused, neglected or traumatized and has attachment issues. Parents of children with attachment disorder quickly learn that attempts to nurture their wounded child are often met with rejection. And they learn that attempts to place demands are often ignored or met with total opposition. Yet, because a parent’s job is to influence, teach and control…we really have little choice but to do the job right by doing it the authoritative way – high demand and high nurture.

Much of what we expect, admittedly, comes from how we ourselves were raised and what we envision as the ideal situation for our child. I place a great deal of importance on relationship on many levels. I do this because I realize, especially now after so many hardships, that the only thing that matters in the long run is relationship. I often feel like Jimmy Stewart at the end of It’s a Wonderful Life, where he realizes that he’s rich in friends and such an integral, important part in so many lives. At least that’s what I want to know I’ve accomplished in the end. And I want that for my children, too.

So, how can you accomplish that without an “in-your-face” kind of parenting – one that is highly nurturing, but also places expectations on the child? To me, that all important balance of the two is the true secret to parenting any child.

In fact, I must REALLY believe it; I’ve blogged about it several times:

Too Hard; Too Soft
Structure & Nurture – Part 1
Structure & Nurture – The Structure Side of the Coin
Special Parenting Not Just for Special Kids – Part 1
Special Parenting Not Just for Special Kids – Part 2