Pa ge 1 Pa ge 18 American Journal of Education and Technology (AJET) Authoritative Parenting: The Best Style in Children’s Learning Arjun Prasad Tiwari1* Volume 1 Issue 3, Year 2022 ISSN: 2832-9481 (Online) DOI: https://doi.org/10.54536/ajet.v1i3.687 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajet Article Information ABSTRACT Received: September 29, 2022 Accepted: October 25, 2022 Published: October 30, 2022 The study purposes to analyses the influence of parents’ roles in their children’s learning, and claim the suitable parenting style with argumentations. The parents’ roles or accountabil- ity in children’s overall learning have been categorized into various parenting styles, i.e. au- thoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved. A few types of research have indicated that parents in traditional societies have been exercising authoritarian parenting as a solution to make their children true followers. The national and international legal provisions are against this authoritarian parenting. On the contrary, most research has shown that author- itative parenting is the best style for children’s learning. It makes the children create socially valued self-esteem, develop social skills, democratic values, and personality traits, and value discipline. This theoretical study concludes that authoritative parenting makes children learn about humanism, mutual relationships, receptivity, conscientiousness, administer fair and consistent discipline, encourage independence, and express warmth and nurturance. The argumentations and claims under the discussion section signify the value of authoritative parenting. Keywords Authoritative Role, Discipline, Personality Traits, Self-Esteem, Social Skills 1 Nepal Rastriya Secondary School Laxmanpur, Bansgadhi Multiple Campus, Bansgadhi, Bardiya Nepal * Corresponding author’s e-mail: tiwari.arjun367@gmail.com INTRODUCTION Children reflect the society of tomorrow. The UN Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) and the government of Nepal defines children as persons under 18 years of age. According to the Act Relating to Children, 2018 children below six years of age shall have the right to learn properly by their age and level of development under their parents’ guidance (Bhattarai, 2020). Children learn not only the content of the prescribed curriculum but also social skills, self-esteem, democratic values, discipline, emotional control, and personality traits. Many parents seem to have been tired of their children who have the habit of cursing, talking back, procrastinating at work, refusing to follow their orders, and feeling shy to come in front. In such a situation, some parents attempt to control by corporal punishment, show bullying manners, and yell; some try to direct their children by considering their desires, and some leave them free without care. The accountability or roles that parents perform in their children’s learning design and shape the child’s behaviours and thoughts accordingly. If so, what kind of parenting is the best style for children’s overall learning? The parents’ commonly practiced roles are authoritarian parenting, authoritative parenting, permissive parenting, and uninvolved parenting. Authoritarian parenting makes children see the world through their parents’ lens. Yelling, corporal punishment, controlling behaviors, mistrust, unwillingness to negotiate, and shaming are the features of the authoritarian role of parents. Authoritative parenting makes children administer fair and consistent discipline, encourage independence, and express warmth and nurturance. Children develop good social skills and self- confidence in their abilities and have emotional control and regulation. Permissive parenting makes children see the world through children’s lenses with little interference. The parents take their children as a friend. Loving and nurturing, few rules without structures, emphasis on freedom rather than accountability, and no worries for consequences are some features of permissive parenting. In uninvolved parenting, parents never ask about their children’s homework, school, or responsibilities. Children don’t receive much parental attention, nurturing, and guidance. Baumrind introduced authoritative parenting in 1971 as one of the styles for controlling and demanding the role of parents that rationally directs the activities of children in an issue-oriented manner and results in the children with self-reliance, independence, and self- control for life satisfaction (Baumrind, 1971). A survey (Watabe & Hibbard, 2014) in the United States and Japan, explored that authoritative parenting resulted in better academic goals for Western children, and authoritarian parenting resulted in positive academic outcomes for Asian children. Similarly, Haslam et al. (2020) studied the parenting style comparing Australia and Indonesia. They found that parents teach their children to be independent and emotionally expressive in individualist cultures (Australia) that advocate authoritative parenting. Still, the children try to maintain social harmony and suppress their negative emotions in collectivist cultures (Indonesia) which indicates authoritarian parenting. The culture and tradition of the country also affect the practice of parenting styles. However, a study (Hossain & Eisberg, 2020) in South Asian families explored that parents teach the content of learning subjects and the socio-cultural and religious values in children’s educational activities. The parents expect to be obeyed by their children whatever they order but globalisation and access to communication compel https://doi.org/10.54536/ajet.v1i3.687 mailto:https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajet%0D?subject= mailto:tiwari.arjun367%40gmail.com?subject= Pa ge 19 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajet Am. J. Educ. Technol. 1(3) 18-21, 2022 them to act as authoritative parenting. Authoritative parenting is the demand of the present world as it makes the children learn social skills, democratic values, personality traits, self-esteem, and discipline. METHODOLOGY The qualitative, interpretive research method has been used to gather the information, and to interpret authoritative parenting with secondary sources of data. The research articles, papers, dissertations, and national and international laws related to various types of parenting have been studied and used as the source of information to explore, explain, analyse, and interpret the parenting styles practised around the world. As Yin (2018) suggested I have consulted relevant books, official publications, articles, newspapers, and magazines to analyse the information obtained from the secondary data. The article has been interpreted based on the socio- cultural context of parenting in developing countries. As suggested, I read the secondary articles many times and created a series of themes (Creswell & Creswell, 2017) manually. The information contained in the themes was analysed manually. The conclusion was naturalistic generalisations (Stake, 1995) of the findings because of my involvement in the interpretation. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION Why authoritative parenting? How does it support the children’s learning? How is it different from other parenting styles? This section argues with claims on behalf of authoritative parenting. Authoritative Parenting Creates Socially Valued Self- esteem Self-esteem refers to confidence or satisfaction in oneself. Martínez and García (2007) claimed that permissive parenting shows the highest scores for creating self- esteem in children. The children become less self-reliant, explorative, and self-controlled. Being self-controlled and having high scores in socially ignored self-esteem can’t play a crucial role in life satisfaction. On the other hand, confidence in one’s worth can be helpful or harmful to society. Socially harmful self-esteem creates lots of egocentric habits. In this matter, Lavrič and Naterer (2020) claimed that authoritative parenting makes children socially and instrumentally more competent with higher socially valued self-esteem and lower levels of depression. Authoritative parenting makes the children self-satisfied in learning, promotes reasoning, and cultured autonomy (Osorio & Gonzalez-Camara, 2016). Similarly, a cross- cultural study (Martinez et al., 2020) in Spain, Portugal, and Brazil investigated that only authoritative parenting is accountable for creating self-esteem that internalizes children’s social values. The above literature shows that only an authoritative role can create socially valued self- esteem. Authoritative Parenting Develops Social Skills and Democratic Values Children should learn social skills and democratic values such as sharing, cooperating, listening to others, following directions, respecting personal space, using manners, making eye contact, collective decision-making for the common good, liberty, equality, justice, the pursuit of happiness, love for the nation, etc from their families. Van Vleet and Bodman (2016) claimed that authoritarian parents tend to display hostility, anxiety, aggression, dependency, delinquency, rebelliousness, and other authoritarian rules. Similarly, a study (Bhatta et al., 2019) in Nepal, explored the parents’ beliefs in traditional societies that children spoil their life if they are left uncontrolled, so are to tie them with a chain of restrictions. In such family traits, how can children develop their social skills and democratic values? They only have the feeling of negativism and revenge. Humans are social beings. Childhood is the foundation to mirror family, society, and the nation of tomorrow. Democratic family functioning develops social skills in children (Miklikowska & Hurme, 2011). A study (Zhang et al., 2018) in China investigated that a good parent- child relationship fosters children’s democratic values and social creativity. To maintain a good relationship, parents should encourage their children to discuss options, express warmth and nurturing, foster independence and reasoning, work collectively, cooperate with social members, and discuss justice, liberty and equality. Authoritative Parenting Develops Personality Traits A person’s characteristic patterns of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors such as openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, neuroticism, agreeableness, etc. are personal traits. In the context of Nepal, Kunwor (2018) investigated that parents generally charge physical punishment, show bullying manners, and restrict autonomy. As a result, children can’t express their opinions, thoughts, and feelings openly, can’t control and maintain their emotions such as fear, anger, frustration, jealousy, loneliness, hesitate to talk to others, and seem pessimistic, shy, and silent. Authoritative parenting is the best way to develop personality traits in children. A study (Metsäpelto & Pulkkinen, 2003) in Finland explored that authoritative parents scored higher for creating greater sensitivity in extraversion, agreeableness, and openness. Additionally, a survey (Maddahi et al., 2012) in India found that the children learned humanism, mutual relationships, receptivity, and conscientiousness from financially rich parents, well educated, and highly cultured. Similarly, Ceka and Murati (2016) state that parents’ caring, rewarding, and praising of children are the real stimulators to shape personality traits. Therefore, parents should avoid labeling, punish lovingly, set a good example, learn to accept the inadequacies of children, and listen and pay attention to their children. So that, children can develop personality traits unknowingly. https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajet Pa ge 20 https://journals.e-palli.com/home/index.php/ajet Am. J. Educ. Technol. 1(3) 18-21, 2022 Authoritative Parenting Values the Discipline A child has to value discipline to be socially and culturally a true human being. Parents should set positive disciplinary strategies such as setting limits, giving consequences, hearing them out, giving them your attention, catching them being good, knowing the time not to respond, having prepared for trouble, calling a time-out, etc the children could value the discipline. On the contrary, a study (Chao, 1994) in China explored that the children learn the value of discipline through authoritarian parenting, also called tiger parenting (Kim et al., 2013) or Confucian tradition, such as showing loyalty and respect to the elders, and following the cultural norms and values without questioning. In the context of Nepal, a survey (Kandel et al., 2017) reported that parents charge more for physical punishment to teach their children the value of discipline. Authoritarian parenting (physical punishment) shapes children’s behaviors for a short period, however, it generates various negative results such as children becoming true liars to escape from punishment, physical aggression, marital dispute, and involvement in criminal and violent activities. Children begin to value discipline if parents redefine their roles against tiger parenting, as authoritative parenting, and become self-disciplined, avoid debate, make clear rules, take control over any negative emotions, and reward and praise the children for every success (Marjo, 2019). On the other hand, any kind of offense, violence, or punishment upon children is legally prohibited. For example, the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child declares that the state must protect children from all forms of violence, including corporal punishment (UN General Assembly, 1990). Furthermore, the Constitution of Nepal, 2015 legitimizes that no child shall be subjected to physical, mental, or any other forms of torture at home (Secretariat & Durbar, 2015) Similarly, the Act Relating to Children, 2018, article 66, protects children from any kind of offenses by parents or other persons (Bhattarai, 2020). Any breach of the law shall be punishable. CONCLUSION Parents should love their children, and understand them with full care and sacrifice. Children should not only get knowledge of the prescribed curriculum in school, but also learn different skills, ideas, and knowledge at home for life satisfaction. Parents’ role/accountability plays a crucial role in children’s learning. In collectivist cultures, students learn skills, knowledge, and ideas under their parents’ complete pressure, sometimes with offenses, called authoritarian parenting. Some researchers and authors have claimed that permissive parenting scores higher in creating self-esteem in students. But the above analysis indicated that children’s learning fostered better and became lifelong and created socially valued self- esteem through authoritative parenting. The parents in traditional societies would believe that if the children were fully controlled and tied to a chain of restrictions, social skills, and democratic values could be observed. The above discussion and interpretation concluded that the negative pressure never shaped the skills and values such as sharing, cooperating, listening to others, collective decision making, love for the nation, justice, etc. On the other hand, the authoritative parenting could make children understand humanism, mutual relationships, receptivity, and conscientiousness, provide them a life satisfaction, administer fair and consistent discipline, encourage independence, and express warmth and nurturance. Children would learn to be complete human beings. So, it is concluded that the authoritative parenting creates socially-valued self-esteem, develops social skills, democratic values, and personality traits, and values the discipline which paly the valuable role to make a student a complete human being. REFERENCES Baumrind, D. (1971). Current patterns of parental authority. Developmental Psychology Monograph, 4, 1-103. Bhatta, K. R., Shakya, S., & Shrestha, P. (2019). 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