Parenting style is very important in child rearing and can have consequences on the way a child develops and can have long term effects on children and their personalities forward in life. Diana Baumrind developed her ideas about parenting styles and their effects by studying 100 preschool children and their parents. Although the majority of his study subjects were middle-class European Americans from California, thus not offering much diversity in his study, the results were very convincing and interesting. Baumrind found that parents varied on four dimensions: expression of warmth, strength of discipline, communication, and expectation of maturity. Using these dimensions as a basis, Baumrind developed three main parenting style classifications (four parenting style classifications if neglectful/uninvolved parenting style is included). The three classifications of parenting styles developed by Baurmrind are: authoritarian, permissive and authoritative. The authoritarian parenting style is strict, with high behavioral standards for the child, they are expected to follow the parents' rules and authority without question. Baumrind also states that authoritative parents can often be described as aloof, and although they love the child, they rarely show affection towards him or her, as expressions of emotion are not encouraged and are rare. The permissive parenting style is described as lazy. Parents make few demands on the child, there is little behavioral discipline or expectations of the child. Parents are considered very caring, affectionate and communicative, but at the same time they offer the child very little discipline or control. The third parenting style is the authoritative parenting style which is described as somewhere in the middle... middle of paper...... affectionate and loving towards my mother by giving her lots of hugs and kisses, whereas with my father we understood that the best way to show him that we loved him was to show him respect. When we called my mother we did so with endearing, endearing terms like “mama” or “mama” while my father was called “sir.” I believe that by having these two types of parenting styles we have learned to behave differently with different people. We learned that certain behaviors were only tolerated in certain situations, with certain people, which I think was very useful in life. We learned that there was a time and place for behaviors and we learned to decipher them by observing our parents and their behavior. After reading about the differences in parenting styles, I believe I grew up as a well-adjusted individual despite the parenting styles used by my parents.