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Definition

The authoritarian style mainly enforces respect and obedience for instructions and orders through a mechanism of punishment. As a parenting style, it is structured, commanding and control-based.

Inflexible rules are usually very clearly expressed and must be followed to the letter.

Any “bad behaviour” or transgression entails certain sanctions, sometimes physical, or punishments designed to dissuade. Parents frequently use threats or raised voices to control children’s behaviour.

Children are never maltreated but love is taken as assumed, with no need to express or demonstrate it, and parents rarely express or show their feelings. Communication is also fairly limited. Answering back to an order or a decision is seen as a lack of respect.

Authoritarian parents are not very sensitive to their children’s specific needs or desires as individuals, expecting them to be and become what’s asked of them in terms of goals, values and beliefs.

Motivation

For authoritarian parents, the demand to behave prevails over the relationship with their children. The aim is to teach respect and to mould children through strict rules. It’s all about shaping them by permanently controlling their behaviour, teaching them through the repetition of precise instructions.

Children are seen as being incapable of thinking or deciding for themselves what’s right and wrong, and of acting accordingly. By imposing on them a well-defined mode of behaviour, “children will become good, well-brought-up boys or girls”.

My Own Experience

After my illusions about permissive parenting, I thought – to his detriment and to ours – that the authoritarian style was the only option in bringing our eldest child’s uncontrollable behaviour back into line.

I very quickly realized that you had only to frighten children enough to get them to obey. A raised voice, grimaces, threats, punishments, it was all grist to the mill in getting them to behave the way I wanted.

I also concluded that this style was pretty well adapted to children with behaviour problems, such as being too impulsive, aggressive, disrespectful and so on.

I had difficulty being consistent in carrying through this style, but I did it for my son and my wife, who had had to overcompensate for my permissive style.

After long discussions with my wife, watching programmes and readings books, I understood how much children need a fairly strict framework of rules and routines. It reassures them, even if it frustrates at the time.

After a few months of following the structured style, Ilyan became a friendlier, spontaneously more obedient little chap, without losing any of his curiosity and energy.

Over the years, with four children imitating one another, I’ve fluctuated quite a bit between the permissive and the authoritarian style, as the stakes became higher for us as parents.

I think the authoritarian style should have a place only in certain specific situations, because sometimes you need to be able to say a categorical “no” for your instructions to work. Without overdoing it…

In fact, I’m still searching for a style that suits me. It’s probably the democratic style, which we’ll be describing very soon.

The Consequences of the Authoritarian Style in Psychologists’ Eyes

Positives: The children of authoritarian parents tend to be reasonably successful at school and exhibit few behaviour problems.

Negatives: -Children’s ability to decide for themselves isn’t recognized. They tend to be more depressive, with problems of self-esteem and often relationship problems.

-Some may feel intimidated by authority.

-Feeling stifled, others may later rebel more violently and, as a reaction, embark on courses of behaviour contrary to their upbringing. They may also be more prone to the influence of dangerous behaviours like drugs, alcohol, petty crime, etc.

The authoritarian style is the style of societies where children aren’t seen as distinct, independent identities. It is generally prevalent in Western societies, which hand down their knowledge and values from one generation to the next by imitation: “Do as I do, I’m the expert, I know better than you, you’re going to obey the values we’ve been obeying for generations.”

The idea of “family” has changed a great deal. Education is opening up to help children adjust and take their destinies into their own hands. The highly controlling and full-on punishment approach is evolving toward something more complete and constructive.

Series on Parenting styles