A parenting style refers to a pattern of behaviors, attitudes, and approaches that a parent uses when interacting with and raising their child. The study of parenting styles is based on the idea that parents differ in their patterns of parenting and that these patterns can have a significant impact on their children's development and well-being. Parenting styles are distinct from specific parenting practices, since they represent represent broader patterns of practices and attitudes that create an emotional climate for the child. Parenting styles also encompass the ways in which parents respond to and make demands on their children.

Children go through different stages in life, and parents create their own parenting styles from a combination of factors that evolve over time as children begin to develop their own personalities. During the stage of infancy, parents try to adjust to a new lifestyle in terms of adapting and bonding with their new infant. Developmental psychologists distinguish between the relationship between the child and parent, which ideally is one of attachment, and the relationship between the parent and child, referred to as bonding. In the stage of adolescence, parents encounter new challenges, such as adolescents seeking and desiring freedom.

A child's temperament and parents' cultural patterns have an influence on the kind of parenting style a child may receive. How parents were raised also influences the parenting styles they choose to use.

Early researchers studied parenting along a range of dimensions, including levels of responsiveness, democracy, emotional involvement, control, acceptance, dominance, and restrictiveness. In the 1960s, Diana Baumrind created a typology of three parenting styles, which she labeled as authoritative, authoritarian and permissive (or indulgent). She characterized the authoritative style as an ideal balance of control and autonomy. This typology became the dominant classification of parenting styles, often with the addition of a fourth category of indifferent or neglectful parents. Baumrind's typology has been criticized as containing overly broad categorizations and an imprecise and overly idealized description of authoritative parenting. Later researchers on parenting styles returned to focus on parenting dimensions and emphasized the situational nature of parenting decisions.

Some early researchers found that children raised in a democratic home environment were more likely to be aggressive and exhibit leadership skills while those raised in a controlled environment were more likely to be quiet and non-resistant. Contemporary researchers have emphasized that love and nurturing children with care and affection encourages positive physical and mental progress in children. They have also argued that additional developmental skills result from positive parenting styles, including maintaining a close relationship with others, being self-reliant, and being independent.