Robert Larzelere

editor of Authoritative Parenting: Synthesizing Nurturance and Discipline for Optimal Child Development

February 4, 2013

Robert E. Larzelere is professor of human development and family science at Oklahoma State University. He has done research on parental discipline of young children for more than 30 years and has collaborated with others to improve the methods used to support social scientific conclusions more generally. His research focuses particularly on comparing the emphasis on consistent consequences in some scientific perspectives on parenting with the emphasis on gentle, verbal correction predominant in other scientific perspectives. He recently collaborated with Diana Baumrind to clarify the long-term effects of authoritative parenting and the specific types of power assertion that differentiate it from authoritarian parenting. He benefited from post-doctoral research training from doctors Murray Straus and Gerald Patterson.

Psychologist Diana Baumrind's revolutionary prototype of optimal parenting, called authoritative parenting, has become the bedrock of parenting research. The result is an effective mix of warm nurturance and firm discipline.

In this book, leading scholars update our thinking about authoritative parenting, demonstrating that it fosters high achievement, emotional adjustment, self-reliance, and social confidence in children and adolescents. The book will inform prevention and intervention efforts to help parents maximize their children's potential.

URL: https://library.okstate.edu/news/celebratingbooks/2013-honorees/robert-larzelere

Last Updated: 12 January 2022