If you are trying to understand more about authoritarian parents and would like to know if you possibly fit that description, this is going to be the simplest and clearest definition you can find.

First of all, I’d like you to know that you are not what a piece of paper tells you to be, or an internet article for that matter. You are a person with the ability to change, adapt and improve. Don’t label yourself. Likewise,

Do not let anyone else label you. Make no mistake,

I will help you see if you are producing results of an authoritarian parent. And I will also show you how to adjust your parenting skills in order to bring change to your parenting style with an inside out approach process.

Deal?

Ok, let’s delve into the world of authoritarian parents…

Since parenting is a role within the realm of human relationships, I’ll borrow the bank account analogy from Dr. Steven Covey from the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People”

As Dr. Covey teaches, there’s an emotional bank account between people when they interact with each other.

I’ll replace the two complicated words from the parenting styles study with the two banking service words we know as withdrawals and deposits.

  For demandingness, I’ll use withdrawals.

  And for responsiveness, I’ll use deposits.

And while we’re at it,

Let’s also use the following verbs:

Demand to go along with withdrawals and Give to go along with deposits.

So what does all this mean?

It means that if you tend to demand a lot from your kids in the sense of blind obedience, if your rules are to be obeyed at any costs and your kids don’t have much of a chance to be heard, you simple are making more withdrawals than deposits. You are demanding more than you are giving.

In essence, all parents give to their children. And most of the time, they give out of what they have received from their parents or whatever script they were trained into.
If you’re an authoritarian parent, it could be because that’s the sample you saw and learned from.

Please understand,

This characteristic of your parenting could be showing simply because your communication skills as a parent might be poor. Therefore,

By working on your listening and learning better communication with your children can dramatically improve your deposits in your child-parent emotional bank account.

Truthfully, you will be working on your giving, by refraining from interrupting your kids all the time when they talk.

Why not practice active listening --the state of mind of a true listener--.

You know, when you nod and say uh huh every once in a while

In addition to that, authoritarian parents show high signs of psychological control. They expect (demand) their children to accept their values and goals as their own, as opposed to allowing their children to form their own judgements.

Both authoritative and authoritarian parents exercise behavioural control. They both expect and have standards. But the problem is,

 The authoritarian may also make use of psychological control such as using guilt, withdrawal of love or shaming.*

Remember that boss you had once that gave you your opinion to you when they needed it? Remember how he didn’t allow much room for your input in your work?

Authoritarian parents are very similar to that.
 
Listen my friend,

If you feel you are behaving like an authoritarian parent and would like to adjust that to a lifestyle of more giving to your children in the form of cultivating your parenting skills, we’d like to remind you that you are on the right track.

Look no further,

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* Barber, B. K. (1996). Parental psychological control: Revisiting a neglected construct.

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