A Third Emerging Stage for the Current Digital Society? Optimal Parenting Styles in Spain, the United States, Germany, and Brazil

Abstract

We propose a new paradigm with three historical stages for an optimal parenting style (i.e., indulgent parenting style), which extends the traditional paradigm of only two stages (i.e., authoritarian and authoritative parenting styles). The three stages concur, at the same time, in different environments, context, and cultures. We studied the third stage for optimal parent–child relationships through the offspring’s personal and social well-being, with four adolescent samples from 11 to 19 years old (52.2% girls) from Spain ( n = 689), the United States ( n = 488), Germany ( n = 606), and Brazil ( n = 672). The offspring’s personal well-being was measured through self-esteem (academic, social, emotional, family, and physical), while social well-being was measured with the internalization of self-transcendence (universalism and benevolence) and conservation values (security, conformity, and tradition). The parent–child parenting style was measured through parental warmth and strictness, and the adolescents’ parents were classified into one of four groups (indulgent, authoritarian, authoritative, and neglectful). Remarkably, the greatest personal well-being was found for adolescents raised with higher parental warmth and lower parental strictness (i.e., indulgent), and the greatest social well-being was found for adolescents raised with higher parental warmth (i.e., indulgent and authoritative; p < 0.05 for all countries). Consistently, poorer personal well-being and social well-being were associated with less parental warmth (i.e., authoritarian and neglectful). Findings suggest that the parent–child relationships analyzed have a common pattern associated with personal and social well-being that coincide with a proposed third stage.