Parenting styles - How should a child be raised?

[Penis Drager 2.0]

I'm going to open this discussion by describing the "Maccoby and Martin's Four Parenting Styles" with some of my own thoughts using the framework as a base. You don't have to agree with the framework but it's worth knowing it exists if you want to participate in the discussion:
M&M describe two dichotomies:
Responsive-Unresponsive describe the parents' attention to the wants and needs of the child. On both unrealistic extremes a Responsive parent gives their child everything they ask for while doting on every little cough and sniffle as if it needs prompt attention. An Unresponsive parent in the same extreme would ignore a child's obvious illness until said child gracelessly expires in unbearable agony.
Demanding-Undemanding describe what the parent expects of their child. Unrealistic extremes would be that a Demanding parent has their child do everything he is physically capable of doing around the house while an Undemanding parent is content with them laying in bed all day,

From this arise four parenting styles:
Responsive & Demanding (Authoritative): This was portrayed by M&M as the ideal parenting style. A child raised with reasonable demands and reasonable care for their desires/needs will turn out best. They will learn life skills through said demands and they won't have any long term consequences from their unmet needs. It describes a well-rounded adult. But this whole conclusion feels tautological... moving on.
Unresponsive & Demanding (Authoritarian): This describes an abusive household if taken to the extreme. A lot is expected of the child and the parent doesn't care much for the child's needs. They tend to do everything in their power to leave the family home as soon as possible. And they often have the skills to do so thanks to their demanding parents. They end up with a distrust of authority and people in general. Social anxiety is common as well.
Responsive & Undemanding (Indulgent): The child is given everything they want and nothing is asked of them. I don't think I need to elaborate too much on this. It's what happens when you try to be "friends" with your child. Bad behavior is uncorrected and the adult offspring end up feeling entitled to the things they were given in childhood. Drug abuse is common. But the parents generally find a way to get them a tangible life through nepotism.
Unresponsive & Undemanding (Neglectful): The child is never asked anything of them and never gave anything to them. The parents do the bare minimum required as a parent to keep their child alive and going to school. Holes in shirts. Holes in jeans. Holes in teeth. These kids grow up learning nothing from their parents. Their parents don't know or care what their children are up to with their friends. The parents don't even care that much when their child, without any support network, has no employable skills at 30 and is still living with them. The child was a burden from day one and so he will be to the parents' last days.

 

[Amin Yasister]

No idea. I just grew up, never analysed my parents "style" in my upbringing.

But they must have done it right.

 

[We Are The Witches]

For me I'd say abusive-neglectful, using my own framework.

As for when following your framework if I had a child, I can't choose one on the basis that each classification is very restrictive, like between responsive-unresponsive, there's a whole gradient that can be applied on a case by case basis.

So none of them, it would be a balanced mix of these, depending on a lot of factors.

 

[Nicholas Gur]

I was raised perfectly and still ended up posting on this nazi doxxing site.

 

[Krontopulous]

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

 

[Soso]

My dad always expected me to never act out and be a brat, he could shut me up by glaring at me or firmly grabbing me by the wrist. He was far from abusive, but I wouldn't lie and say he wasn't stressed because he was a single father working as a doctor which is kind of the reason he had much less tolerant for bullshit than other parents. I guess he would be responsive and demanding. I was also expected to help around the house at a young age since it was the two of us unless my great aunt was helping us around, or if i was staying at her or my great uncle's place for a week or two.

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

I can't choose one on the basis that each classification is very restrictive, like between responsive-unresponsive,

There's a reason I underlined unrealistic extreme.
Imagine it as a Cartesian plane and everyone's parenting style falls in one of 4 quadrants: +/- responsiveness and +/- demanding. It's really a question of which quadrant you fall in.

 

[We Are The Witches]

There's a reason I underlined unrealistic extreme.
Imagine it as a Cartesian plane and everyone's parenting style falls in one of 4 quadrants: +/- responsiveness and +/- demanding. It's really a question of which quadrant you fall in.

There's still a decently subjective aspect to this, e.g: how demanding-undemanding something is, and while also expecting consistency.

I'd give my child what they demand heavily depending on the circumstances (long term & short term, what the occasion is, how are they behaving, what are they asking for and its consequences, how would impact them if I give/not give it to them, etc).

Maybe I cannot buy them something because I'm short on money, so I'll refuse, but buy some other time, or what they ask for is bad or for bad reasons (like maybe they want something they won't use, but just want it because they saw another kid with it), maybe I want to reward them for being a good student, or maybe I can promise they will get it if they study more.

And a million other scenarios, perhaps I won't ask much from my child if they themselves are not physically adept for it, like I'd want them to do exercise but only within their limits, how demanding this is or not is very subjective.

So realistically I'd be on the middle of both axis, maybe leaning ever so slightly to one side, but because it's subjective, this would be negligent to assume that I fall on one of the 4 quadrants. So there should be a "circle" in the middle of the plane that is deemed as "grey area", in which I'd fall.

 

[wtfNeedSignUp]

To quote Sargon: "It depends on the child". Some children are more dutiful and it's better not to go tiger mommy, some children are more social and you don't need to fulfil the role of a friend. Though no matter what you want a balance between those.

Plus most households will split the work with the mother being the responsive-undemanding and father being unresponsive -demanding.

 

[DumbDude43]

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

yes but also no
punishment is necessary when the situation calls for it, but overdoing it will lead to the child seeing the parent not as an authority to be respected but as a tyrant to be feared and avoided, which makes it very very hard to actually reason with the kid or have it accept anything you're trying to teach.
also there's the risk that a parent has (or develops) a sadistic streak and starts punishing the child just for fun, or as some sort of stress relief, which is disastrous for the kid. this isn't limited to physical punishment, but it's most obvious and visible when physical punishment is involved.

 

[snowdunes]

Good parenting comes by instinct, no (((Shekelstein))) parental "research" is going to pozz it up.

ended up posting on this nazi doxxing site.

Better than being a reddit user. Your parent did ok compared to others.

 

[Penis Drager 2.0]

Good parenting comes by instinct

This is just gay shit that gets lots of updoots but doesn't mean anything.
What if your instinct is to just let your kid do whatever as he rots in his bug infested room and plays vidya all day?
What if your instinct is to beat the fuck out of him because he annoyed you a bit?

Good instincts lead to good parenting. But a solid framework is good to put your worst instincts in a good perspective.

 

[Nicholas Gur]

Better than being a reddit user.

 

[Grub]

I guess I was probably raised closer to the unresponsive-demanding but not to the extreme described.

They end up with a distrust of authority and people in general.

Yeah pretty much.

Social anxiety is common as well.

I got over that shit after a good friend of mine pointed out that shy, socially awkward people are just selfish pricks who expect other people to do the awkward social shit that everyone finds vaguely uncomfortable for them.

 

[YouTube Autist]

Good parenting comes by instinct

Shit parenting also comes by instinct.

 

[XL xQgg?QcQCaTYDMjqoDnYpG]

I don't agree with this "Four Parenting Styles" notion, I don't think parenting is a matter of style that can be plotted in such dimensions.
The more important question is what a parent actually is in relation to a child. A parent is not primarily an owner experimenting with techniques, a parent is a guardian of a developing agent. That means that some things are not optional. The parent has to meet the child's needs (food, shelter, safety, education in the broad sense) because otherwise the parent is not preserving the child's life. Beyond that, what gets called "responsiveness" is just discretion over wants. You may say yes, you may say no, but either way you're not violating the rights of the child.
Same with "demanding".

Spare the rod, spoil the child.

presumes discipline as punishment. But the real distinction is between punishment and consequence. A parent can set terms for how their household is run, after all it's their property and access to it is conditional. If a child makes a mess, requiring them to clean it is restitution. If they refuse, restricting privileges is enforcement of house rules. If someone calls this sadism, point out it's the same principle that governs all human interaction, you don't get to damage what isn't yours without making it right.

I'm looking at this from the perspective of a parent. Instead of trying to sort yourself into a quadrant, shouldn't you be asking yourself "are you meeting the needs your guardianship obliges you to? are you drawing consistent boundaries? are you letting the child grow into an agent who can respect the same rights in others?"
Everything else (instincts, frameworks, quadrants) is just window-dressing

 

[Otterly]

Raised by boomers. Pretty hands off - we were just left to roam around and do what we wanted, as long as we behaved. Poor behaviour wasn’t tolerated.
Styles of parenting are a big thing on the mummy socials. They generally attract nutters and create miserable kids. Some gems I’ve seen:
1. Minimalist mum. House is beige. Said she downsized her children’s possessions leaving them with ten items each. Children look sad.
2. Orthorexic mums; extreme healthy eating. Not ‘95% of it is home cooked, enjoy some cake now and then.’ No, I mean zero sugar ever. No cake. No ice cream at parties. They looked miserable. Shaming others for feeding kids normal food
3. Never praise. I suspect this comes from the ‘praise effort not outcome’ stuff but I met a mum who never said well done or praised her kids for anything. They looked miserable.
Kids don’t need a full on school of thought type of parenting. They’re all individuals. Just provide a clean, safe and stable home. Feed them mainly healthy stuff, and enjoy treats in moderation. Plenty of fresh air and excercise. Read to them. Good boundaries. Simple rules you stick to. Don’t hover over then, let them be bored sometimes. Clear simple natural consequences for poor behaviour. Refuse to put your coat on? Then be cold. Give them a safe boundary to make their own mistakes in, and expand it as they get older. Just do your best. Nobody’s perfect. Love and stability are the big things.

 

[The Wise Shaman]

My parents did a pretty good job despite me having the opposite personality of their "ideal son" (they wanted a cool jock and got a introverted nerd instead). One thing did they right is they always tried to help me bring the most out of myself even when I was a small child and educators around me saw me as a sped. If I had different parents, I would most likely working a minimum wage job with no achievements other than finishing school instead of studying in an university and having a surprisingly good reputation in my town despite barely interacting with anyone.

My only advice is to believe in your child, no matter how retarded/incompetent he/she seems. You'll never know how much one can achieve if he/she is never given a chance.

 

[snowdunes]

Shit parenting also comes by instinct.

I have the belief that no amount of parental book or course can make up for the antinatalist mentality and contraceptive drugs (anti-mom pills) that people grow up on until their brain is fully developed, you can't go from anti-parent lifestyle in less than a year as an adult to "I'm going to be a good parent now". Look at how weird wording of the post OP made, using political system terms/words to describe parental approaches. This is delusional. If you can't use your instincts and need the Internet Green Reddit to raise a child "well", it's not going to end well.

This cope with parenting "styles" is retarded. Reflect on your own childhood,aand improve what was good and remove the worst part that will result in a better, more successful version than you, because you are raising a mini version of yourself. No kike book will consider that, only you know what worked in life and what didn't. If you got shitty parenting, it's because you got shitty and sick people.

 

[Male Idiot]

First rule: don't hang out with niggers, pajeets, gypsies, and maybe not Achmed the Dead terrorist either.