Parenting Styles and Parenting Practices in Pediatric Diabetes

Abstract

The influence of parents on both the adherence behavior and the glycemic control of their children and adolescents with diabetes has been documented for several decades. In their article, Shorer et al. (1) focus on the dimension of parental influence that has been defined as “parenting style.” They add to the small but growing literature examining the influence of fathers on outcomes in adolescents with a chronic illness (2,3). Scientists in the child development field have emphasized the importance of distinguishing parenting styles from “parenting practices” (4). Parenting styles are defined as characteristics of the parent that are stable over time and constitute the emotional context for specific parenting practices (5). Parenting styles are usually discussed as typologies characterized by the parent's level of sensitivity to and expectations for their child's behavior (6). Parenting styles are usually defined according to the intersection of these two dimensions, as illustrated in Table 1. View this table: Table 1 Typology of parenting styles Parenting practices, on the other hand, are the specific behaviors that parents use to socialize their children. In reality, parenting involves both parenting styles (the stable “emotional climate”) and specific parenting practices (concrete behaviors). Shorer et al. studied Israeli adolescents with type 1 diabetes aged 11–18 years and their mothers and fathers in a cross-sectional study and reported that an “authoritative” parenting style of fathers was related to better glycemic control and adherence in the adolescent, whereas a “permissive” parenting style of mothers was related to worse glycemic …