Determinants of Authoritative Parenting Style in Iranian Mothers

Objectives: The primary goal of this study was to identify the determinants of mother’s authoritative parenting style upon the ecological model of parenting. There are some factors involved in this model such as a parent (i.e. developmental history, personality), and child characteristics (i.e. temperament and developmental issues) and environmental factors. Methods: The statistic population of this study includes mothers in Tehran having preschool children between 4–6 years old. By convenient sampling, eight kindergarten schools were selected, and mothers completed the questionnaires. The sample consisted of 157 mothers who had the authoritative parenting style based on the score of Baumrind’s parenting style questionnaire. The participants completed the questionnaires and data was analyzed with regression analysis. Results: The parent’s neuroticism (r=-0.253, P<0.01), social support (r=-0.200, P<0.05) and some temperamental characteristics of child i.e. excitability (r=-0.526, P<0.01) and activity (r=-0.163, P<0.05) were significant variables in prediction of authoritative parenting style. Discussion: This study enhances our understanding of the primary determinants of authoritative parenting style in Iranian mothers. The authoritative parenting style is a function of interactional mother and child characteristic and contextual components. These parents had a low score on neuroticism. Therefore, they had emotional stability and could manage their impulse and negative emotions about child maltreatment. Also, their children had low scores in excitability and a high score in sociability. Additionally, the authoritative mothers had weak social support. One explanation for this result is that  mothers are the autonomy people and stand on their own rules and had little need to others.