Because the term authoritative is so close to authoritarian and often confuses parents, I prefer to call this style empathy with limits. It’s essential to note that this is not just a matter of finding a happy medium between strict and permissive. Actually, the brilliance of Baumrind’s vision was that she integrated two continuums: demandingness and responsiveness. Stay with me here, because you’re about to discover the answer to many of your parenting dilemmas. Here’s how these two continuums – demandingness and responsiveness – create our four parenting styles. As you can see on the next
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