A Prime Example of Authoritative Parenting Essay

Parental styles have a well-documented influence on children, and play a strong role in a child’s development. Authoritative parenting has been proven to potentially reduce a child’s risk of associating with antisocial peers, and deter engagement in delinquent behavior. Authoritative parenting has also been shown to raise adults that have healthy emotional adjustment and prosocial behavior. My parents used an authoritative parenting style that created a stable, engaging, warm and nurturing childhood for me. I plan on being an authoritative parent. It worked well in my family, and because research both contemporary and historically states that authoritative parenting is the preferable style. My family is an American nuclear family composed of a father, mother and two siblings. My father Jim is a very successful architect and entrepreneur and my mother Michele is the CFO of their businesses, which allowed her to be a stay at home mother for me and my older brother Kristopher. My parents are a solid example of the authoritative parenting style; their parenting style created a stable, engaging, warm and nurturing childhood for me. I believe the productive and effective business relationship they developed as business partners directly influenced how well they parented, and that their experience in joint decision making especially benefited their parenting, and ultimately me as well. Throughout my childhood and adolescence they were a solid authoritative parenting team, which helped them create a home with a lot of structure. Minuchin, as quoted by Omer, Steinmetz, Carthy and Schlippe (2013), says â€Å"Structure plays a crucial role in promoting a stable and secure frame for family life (Minuchin, 1974).† I strongly feel that the structure positively affected my development by minimizing conflict and confusion. I believe my parent’s personalities also greatly influenced why and how they are authoritative parents. My mother is intelligent, articulate, willful, persistent, ethical, logical, and astonishingly organized. My mother has a dominate personality, and is a woman whose actions are generally the result of reason not her emotions, which is rare for women. However, she is an incredibly warm and nurturing mother who has always been emotionally available for me. I feel these positive traits influenced why I generally listened to her advice and direction, as she was a reliable and available mother. I have always immensely respected and loved