‘Parent’, is a word that is bound to create a picture in everyone’s mind, a picture of a mom and a dad (or a dad and a dad or a mom and a mom, you never know), but what a person sees in that picture differs highly on how their parents were; A look of smile, fear, agony, or anger that one gets after remembering their parents is the result of their parent’s parenting skills (yes skills, nobody is born with them).

What is parenting?

In a very crude definition, parenting is rearing and caretaking of a child’s needs, but if to be defined in a finer manner parenting is raising a child and giving him all the basic tools needed to lead a life, be it social skills, education, love or belonging.

According to the experts, there are 4 kinds of parenting styles, which determines the whole course of the child’s life.

• Permissive – You know that friend whose parents let him do anything he wants and resembles more of a friend than a parent, they are the permissive type, they demand very little out of their child and let it choose the course of their life, there is an almost negligible communication gap between the parent and child however there is also a lack of rules and sense of obligation.

• Authoritative – These parents are highly demanding as well as highly providing, they set some basic expectations and demand the child to follow them while being flexible and understanding, they try to understand the child’s feelings without being friendly and letting the child see the effect of their actions.

• Neglectful – oh! Isn’t the title self-explanatory? This kind of parents however do not have much expectation but are not highly providing either, they let the child fend against the world themselves and care very less about communication. Children with such parents often develop trust issues as well as emotional neediness in their later years.

• Authoritarian – It is rather a rigid parenting style where the parent’s responsiveness is rather negligible in contrast to their high demands. These parents think of their children as a product or an investment. The communication is rather undesired and the child often develops a fear of its own parents along with low confidence and lack of social skills.