| Summary: | "There has been an extensive body of empirical research focusing on Baumrind's parenting dimensions, and her theory has been widely summarized in introductory textbooks on child development and parenting. However, the present book is the first scholarly book on authoritative parenting by leading researchers. As such, its purpose is to summarize the most important current parenting research relevant to authoritative parenting, including research on its three unresolved issues as noted by Parke and Buriel (2006). First, the specific mechanisms that account for the effectiveness of authoritative parenting are addressed in several chapters that pinpoint and expand the aspects of responsiveness and demandingness that are particularly helpful or harmful for important child outcomes. Second, Sorkhabi and Mandara (see Chapter 5) address another unresolved issue by exploring how the effects of authoritative parenting vary across cultures. Finally, Morris, Cui, and Steinberg (see Chapter 2) and Larzelere, Cox, and Mandara (see Chapter 4) explore the third issue of whether the positive outcomes associated with authoritative parenting are due to parent or child effects. The chapters not only summarize the current research relevant to authoritative parenting but also clarify its distinctive attributes in important ways. Examples include the relevance of psychological control and of cultural variations in authoritative parenting and equally effective approximations to it. Several chapters supplement Baumrind's recent research by suggesting different ways to distinguish appropriate from counterproductive types of demandingness. Other authors summarize how authoritative parenting is related to emotion socialization, adolescent negotiations for increasing autonomy, cognitive development, and treatments to reduce aggression. Overall, this book incorporates research on authoritative parenting that has been conducted with diverse samples (e.g., clinical and nonclinical, fathers and mothers, younger and adolescent children, urban and rural) in North America and around the world. This book is divided into four sections. Part I covers the history and current state of authoritative parenting research. In Part II, authors distinguish harmful from appropriate types of demandingness, including how demandingness can support disciplinary reasoning and autonomy development in various cultural contexts. In Part II, authors consider the implications of authoritative parenting for clinical and educational interventions. In Part IV, the final section of the book, Henry and Hubbs-Tait (Chapter 10) highlight important themes about parenting that have emerged from these chapters. It is our hope that this book advances Baumrind's original aim: to understand and promote optimal ways in which parents can combine responsiveness and demandingness in socializing their children for the best possible outcomes for them and for society. We believe that this book will benefit students and parenting scholars as well as parenting educators, teachers, and ultimately parents and their children themselves"--Introduction. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved).
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