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The French term “parentalité“ appeared in the 1990s, to correspond to the American “parenting” and the “parentage” of Quebecers, to define the way that parents educate their children, their educational styles. Since then, thousands of scientific studies have been devoted to it, countless manuals since the famous Dr. Spock in the United States and numerous radio (since Françoise Dolto in the 1970s) and TV shows (“Les Maternelles”). It is hard to find a more relevant and media-friendly subject. Finally, support for parenting is a concern and a worry for political leaders, because it is obviously assumed that if parents are failing in their educational missions, other institutions will have a hard time redressing the balance.

There is a consensus in this field that “extreme” educational styles, the Charybdis of authoritarianism and the Scylla of laxity, both result in negative consequences for the child’s socialization, health, safety and education. As Buddhism teaches us, we must again find “the middle way”.

We propose to call this “middle way”, described as “authoritative” in Baumrind’s (1985) three-dimensional classification, “negotiated authority”: “this is what you should do and I will explain why”. Persuasion is achieved through dialog, not physical punishment; these parents provide love and limits. Negotiated authority is a combination of affection and behavioral control, because authoritarianism also involves behavioral control, but without the affection.

Authoritarianism, itself, can take two forms: physical (coercion through beatings, physical punishment and very severe discipline) and psychological (psychological control and intrusion into the child’s autonomy through blackmail, manipulation and lying). In mothers, physical punishment may be associated with a perceived lack of control over the child: those mothers who “cannot do it anymore” will stick to this defensive educational style.

Overprotection and psychological control of the child, which block his or her autonomy, play an important role in the genesis of anxiety in children and adolescents; they induce the idea that the world is dangerous; they reinforce avoidance behaviors and impair children’s skills and self-confidence. Sometimes the measure of overprotectiveness is more related to the anxiety level of the mother than to that of the child.

The educational style adopted by a parent depends on beliefs that are in turn dependent on their own gender and educational background. Fathers tend to have more traditionalist views than mothers, especially when the child is a boy. The higher the educational level, the more likely the parent is to adopt negotiated authority and progressive views.

The educational style adopted by parents also obviously depends on their personalities. For example, parents with weak internal personality cohesion and low emotional control skills are less likely to adopt negotiated authority.

On the other hand, a parent’s educational style is also an effect of the child towards the parent: the parent reacts to what the child is. Thus, the “norm” in modern Western families, at least those of the middle class or bourgeoisie, is negotiated authority, since the media and their environment now tell them that this is the best strategy. Parents therefore prefer to use this strategy, at least as long as they are not confronted with a type of child that thwarts it (e.g. a child with a difficult character), in which case they will then be forced to change their strategy.

This is probably why, while ordinary physical violence (slapping, spanking, etc.) is decreasing, because it is more stigmatized, more serious physical abuse does not follow this trend (when parents are overwhelmed). There is an interaction between the parents and the child: parents using the authoritarian strategy most often have children with difficult characters (at least in the middle and upper classes). Meta-analyses on this subject show that the relationship between the mother’s educational style and the child’s temperament is a two-way street: the parent’s perceptions and attributions strongly influence their educational style.

The longitudinal relationship between parenting and child behavior problems is thus bidirectional, so negative parenting can influence behavior problems as much as the reverse. For example, maternal emotional rejection at kindergarten entry predicts an increase in behavior problems at the end of kindergarten, and then behavior problems at the end of kindergarten in turn predict an increase in maternal emotional rejection at the beginning of first grade. For fathers, there is a bidirectional relationship between hostility and behavior problems. These phenomena are analyzed as “developmental cascades”; we have also proposed the concept of “spiral causality” (Assailly 2017).

Furthermore, the reciprocal influence between practices and problems evolves differently in mother–child and father–child dyads, depending on the dimensions studied.

In terms of “affective rejection”, the relationship would be bidirectional in the case of the mother, but unidirectional in the case of the father (affective rejection that predicts behavioral problems); the father’s expression of affection would be more important as the child ages, whereas for mothers, the affective bond is linked to the child’s adaptation from the preschool period. It is recognized that mothers are more involved with their children and spend more time with them than fathers, especially when the children are younger. Fathers, on the other hand, feel that their emotional bond with their young child may not be as strong as that of the mother, but they say that this bond will grow stronger as the child grows.

Conversely, with regard to “hostile practices”, there is a bidirectional link between fathers’ hostility and behavioral problems, whereas for mothers, this link is unidirectional; the more intense affective investment of mothers towards younger children could also explain why behavioral problems only seem to predict an increase in the use of hostile practices in a unidirectional link. Indeed, the nature of the particular mother–child emotional bond might somehow delay the use of more hostile practices toward the child.

Indeed, maternal hostility predicts an increase in children’s externalizing behavior problems in the period between 11 and 13. The strength of the emotional bond between mother and infant may explain why mothers employ fewer hostile practices when the child is younger, but when the child is older and exhibits increasing behavior problems, the protective effect of the emotional bond disappears.

Another type of interaction studied is that parents are more authoritarian with their daughters and give more autonomy to boys. Similarly, pubescent girls have more autonomy than non-pubescent girls. Finally, the sexual composition of the siblings plays a role in the difference in treatment between boys and girls. These differences are strongly dependent on parents’ adherence to gender stereotypes in their educational practices.

Various studies (Assailly 2007) have allowed us to understand the impact of parental educational styles on the child’s future: coercive styles produce anxiety in children, permissive styles produce aggression and transgression, as well as feelings of loneliness in girls.

Authoritarianism is linked to poorer moral judgment in children and lower self-esteem, smoking and illicit drug use by adolescents. Certainly, many interaction effects exist. In the example of tobacco use, the effects of authoritarianism are mediated by peer smoking; it has more negative effects on Caucasian children than on African American children, for instance.

Similarly, the correlation between authoritarianism, coercive educational styles based on physical punishment and externalized child disorders is observed in the United States in privileged environments, but not for African American families. In other words, the same family characteristic does not have the same effect depending on the family’s background. It also indicates that smacking may not be experienced in the same way: it will be seen as aggression for children from privileged backgrounds, but a norm that does not imply rejection of the parent in disadvantaged backgrounds. Conversely, the absence of physical discipline in disadvantaged environments does not necessarily indicate an advantage: it may come from an abdication of the parental role. This remains true only when physical discipline remains within a certain range; beyond that, when faced with abuse, the negative effects are the same in all settings.

The negative effects of authoritarianism have also been observed in a population of Beijing children (Assailly 2007); this authoritarianism is related to poor control (ability to inhibit habitual responses) and a disposition towards anger/ frustration. Permissiveness or laissez-faire also results in various negative effects: impulsiveness, aggressiveness and irresponsibility.

The relationship between negative parenting practices in mothers and fathers and the presence of externalizing behavior problems in children from kindergarten to grade 3 has evolved over time. While the link between these two variables is no longer in question, questions persist as to the direction of their influence and their evolution over time, especially in the case of father–child dyads. Indeed, while some authors assert that, in order to fully understand the externalized problems in young children, it is necessary to look simultaneously at their individual characteristics and the educational practices of their parents, many authors strongly suggest that results that have been validated with mothers should not be applied unilaterally to fathers. In fact, it is increasingly recognized that fathers have an influence on their child’s development that is different from and complementary to that of mothers. Moreover, both parents contribute in a different way to the development of their preschooler’s behavioral difficulties.

Involvement in delinquency, substance use and early sexuality are therefore less common in families with negotiated authority. Negotiated authority is obviously a more complex model of parenting to make work: it requires parents to be sensitive both to the child’s needs and to the persuasiveness of his or her arguments. In authoritarian families, parents make the decisions; in permissive families, children do. In negotiated authority families, decisions are negotiated.