Parenting Styles Quiz: A Simple Test to Determine the Style You Apply

Which parenting style method do you use primarily with your kids? In this article, you will be invited to take a test and score your answers to find out which model is your primary parenting style.

After you have added up your test scores and figured out which category most fits you, you'll learn more about the different parenting styles and the strengths and weaknesses of each.

Imagine that you found your child playing catch with a softball and glove in the living room. You saw him toss the ball up in the air a couple feet in front of him and then make a diving catch. Since there were breakables all around, you told him to go outside and play in the yard.

Then you walked into the laundry room. As you began folding the towels, you heard a crash. You ran into the living room and saw your son on the floor with a piece of the vase he'd just broken in his hand. What would you do? Pick the answer that best describes your initial action. Write down the score associated with it.

Parenting Styles Question Quiz

Yell at him, send him to his room and punish him for breaking the vase by taking away all his privileges for 2 weeks. (10 points)

Don't worry about it. Even though your mother gave you the vase, you never really liked it. (3 points)

Go get a trash bag and ask your son to help you pick up the pieces of the broken vase. Ask him what he learned from the experience. Ask him how he can make it up to you for breaking the vase. Ask him if he understands now why you asked him to play catch outside. (5 points)

3 Styles of Parenting

Your son comes home from school with detention. Which of the following 3 actions are you most likely to take.

Ground him for a week and take away all his privileges. (10 points)

The school punished him for whatever he did, so you're not concerned about it. You do hope he learned his lesson though. (3 points)

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Talk to you about what happened at school. Ask him what led up to the detention and why he was given one. Ask him why he acted in the way he did. Ask him to tell you what he might do differently if the same situation came up again. (5 points)

3 Parenting Styles Question

You've caught your son in an outright lie. What do you do:

Punish him severely. That will teach him not to lie. (10 points)

Let it go. All kids lie at one point or another. (3 points)

Sit your son down and talk to him about why he lied. Find out what he was afraid of or what he was hiding and why. Explain to him that real relationships are based on a foundation of trust and that when he lies to you, he undermines your trust in him.

Add up your score. Find your score listed in the chart below. Next to the range in which your total score falls, you'll see your parenting style listed. Although you may not always tend to operate from this style, generally most parents fit in one of the 3 parenting styles.

If your score is 23-30, your parenting style tends to be authoritarian If your score is 13-24, your parenting style tends to be authoritative. If your score is below 13, your parenting style tends to be permissive.

Although this is not a conclusive test, it does give you an idea of your tendencies. The description below will tell you how your style of parenting affects your children.

3 Modes of Parent-Child Interaction

Parents who are authoritarian tend to use punishment to teach, but unfortunately, punishment usually backfires because children only learn what not to do and some children will rebel against this, no matter how harsh or strict the parent becomes.

When this happens, nothing works to get a child on track. Worse yet, children who are raised in this way do not learn how to think for themselves because the parent is constantly correcting and punishing them. These children internalize the harsh critic who is the parent and that critic becomes the basis for their self-talk.

Parents who are permissive pretty much let their children raise themselves. This cripples the child in the long run because children do not have the maturity or perspective to make the best choices for themselves. When faced with too many choices that are beyond the child's ability to weigh, the child may be paralyzed into inaction. Kids like this often grow into adults who are terrified of making choices.

Conclusions

The authoritarian and permissive parent cripple their children emotionally but in different ways.

On the other hand, the authoritative parenting style (sometimes called democratic) believes that a child learns how to make increasingly better choices when a parent takes the time to guide and teach him.

Unfortunately, most parents tend to raise their children the way that they were raised. This means that if you were raised by authoritarian or permissive parents, you haven't internalized a healthy model of parenting from which to base your actions.

Since most of your actions are really reactions, you will treat your children the way your parents treated you. Your children will grow up to do the same to their children and so the torch is passed.

You can learn how to break free of ineffective parenting styles. Start by reading my parenting book, Keepers of the Children: Native American Wisdom and Parenting In it you will learn how to break the cycle and make better, more informed, more humane choices when it comes to interacting with your kids.

In addition, you will learn how to:

Raise your children to think for themselves and make good choices on their own.
Teach them how to develop their natural strengths, so they become progressively aware of who they are and what their strengths are as they are growing up
See that parenting is as much about your growth and development as it is about your child's.
Refuse to do what was done unto you. Break the family pattern today.

You may want to consider the companion workbook/journal which will allow you to take these concepts and make them a part of your practice of parenting. When you improve yourself, you empower your children.

Thanks for taking our parenting style quiz.