Your parenting style can affect everything from your child's self-esteem and physical health to how they relate to others. It's important to ensure your parenting style is supporting healthy growth and development because the way you interact with your child and how you discipline them will influence them for the rest of their life. Researchers have identified four main types of parenting styles:1 Authoritarian Authoritative Permissive Uninvolved Each style takes a different approach to raising children, offers different pros and cons, and can be identified by a number of different characteristics. People often want to know which parenting style they are using—and which is the best. The truth is that there is no one right way to parent, but the general parenting style that most experts, including the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP), recommend is an authoritative approach.