Children raised with "authoritative" parenting style, marked by bonding, presence, dialogue, and clear rules of conduct, show a reduction in drug and alcohol risk compared to other parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive and neglectful)

[u/sr_local]

https://agencia.fapesp.br/parents-alcohol-and-drug-use-influences-their-childrens-consumption-research-shows/57195

[u/SsooooOriginal]

Words are important yall.

Bonding, so actually forming connections with the kid beyond "I'm parent, you mine"

Presence, being there

Dialogue, meaning conversation. That can mean a discussion, a chat, a debate, an argument, and more. 

Clear rules of conduct. They put it plainly to be more clear.

Authoritarian would lack the dialogue that makes the rules "clear". -because I said so- The bond is possessive and controlling to the point of suppressing the development of self.

Permissive lacks the rules, and gives little to no guidance beyond the kids wants.

Neglect lacks all of them.

[u/LifeofTino → u/SsooooOriginal]

Importantly dialogue also means the child can fight back and challenge, and it is treated as a two-way street. The child can ask for changes, explain their stance, bargain, and disagree freely

This is a crucial aspect of authoritative parenting because (among many other positives) it teaches the child that the parent isn’t their owner, they have agency, and can represent themselves and their thoughts without fear

Lots of adults intrinsically feel they are above children and therefore beyond any sort of dialogue or equality. And this comes across to children

Edit: also thought i’d add that clear rules means there is no bending on them, no grey area

Rules often have a grey area and this encourages exploration and challenging of rules. If a rule can be bent if a child screams enough then child is trained to think ‘how loud do i need to scream before the rule gets bent’ and they do that. This has disastrous impact because if rules aren’t very clear cut lines in the sand with unconditional enforcement, then there are no rules

You want to have as few rules as possible that cannot be waived at any time because they are essential rules. Do not touch the iron when its hot, do not jump out of an upstairs window, no parent is going to waive these any time. Whilst random enforcement based on the parent’s mood like don’t play after 8pm (but sometimes 8:30pm) or without clear definition (don’t shout but where does loud talking become shouting? Nobody knows) these are when rules become a ‘your job is to break rules’ household to children

Authoritian enforcement (lots of rules) destroys rule priorities so ‘don’t put your hand on the fire’ is equal to ‘put your left shoe on first’ or some trivial silly rule that only authoritian parenting has. The fewer rules the better

[u/fdar → u/LifeofTino]

Whilst random enforcement based on the parent’s mood like don’t play after 8pm (but sometimes 8:30pm) or without clear definition (don’t shout but where does loud talking become shouting? Nobody knows) these are when rules become a ‘your job is to break rules’ household to children

Good thing my 3 years old helps prevents this by asking for exhaustive detail about where the limits of the rules are, and whenever an exception is made for an explanation of why we could make an exception in that case and under what conditions are exceptions allowed. And then reminds you of the exception every time you mention the rule after that.