Parenting Styles and Practices

Abstract

This chapter examines parenting styles and parenting practices related to children’s moral behavior. In the first part of the chapter, parenting styles, dimensions of parenting styles, and parenting practices, including induction, power assertion, love withdrawal, rewards, and experiential learning, are presented as main effects in predicting children’s moral behavior. The literature associated with individual dimensions of warmth and behavioral control is examined as well. Next, the literature that examines bidirectional effects between parents and children in predicting moral behavior is examined. Subsequently, mediators of parenting effects, such as sympathy and self-regulation, are examined, followed by a consideration of moderators of parenting effects including attachment, shared positive affect, responsiveness, negative affect, child temperament, emotion regulation, sex of child, age of child, and sex of parents. Extensions to the literature are explored throughout the chapter and in the final section of the chapter.