Authoritative Parenting using the Discipline Model

Authoritative parents take the following approach to the components of discipline.[i]  They . . .

Relationship

• Are devoted to building the parent-child relationship with the primary goal of developing their child’s character and competence.
• Are appropriately responsive to their child’s needs.
• Unselfishly demonstrate loving care for the child.
• Monitor their children’s activities and know their whereabouts.
• Are both demanding and responsive. They integrate and balance high levels of responsiveness with high levels of demandingness in ways that are beneficial to children’s development.

Instruction

• Require mature behavior within the child’s range of ability, and base demands and prohibitions on their child’s attributes, abilities and developmental level.
• With power-assertion demands, they accompany their demands with explanations to help the child understand the parent’s concept of appropriate behavior.
• Use reason and discussion to obtain compliance and are willing to negotiate when they deem their child’s objections to be reasonable.
• Model what they preach in areas such as self-control, generosity, and appropriate behavior.
• Encourage individuality and independence.

Affirmation

• Praise worthy behavior and achievement
• Are warm, responsive, and support the child’s autonomy.
• Show respect for their child in all their actions
• Are warm and understanding of their child’s perspective.

Correction

• Logically connect their corrective sanctions to the consequences of their child’s actions.
• Don’t hesitate to criticize their child’s actions that require change.
• Use behavioral control that is overt and confrontive aimed at achieving compliance with their directives; rather than being covert and intrusive.
• Willing to use appropriate disciplinary spanking when necessary to achieve behavioral control and confrontive discipline.
• Refuse to use manipulative forms of behavioral control, such as psychological control, coercive power, wounding words, and harsh physical punishment.

Because authoritative parents are warm, responsive and autonomy-supportive as well as power-assertive, their children are motivated to restore family harmony by complying or else by constructively dissenting in an effort to change their parent’s mind rather than to defiantly or evasively disobey.