Power assertion is foundational to the authoritative parenting style and the authoritative parenting style is consistently acknowledged to be optimal so that a pejorative view of power assertion per se is unwarranted. In contrast to the “child-centered” presumption that power assertion by parents is detrimental to the well-being of children and bears an antinomian relation to reasoning, I argue that reasoning and confrontive power assertion are independent processes that, when synthesized, account for the benefits of authoritative parenting relative to the other primary parenting styles (authoritarian, permissive, disengaged) in which either or both confrontive power assertion and reasoning are minimal. Directive parenting, a newly identified power-assertive parenting style that is as demanding as the authoritarian style, but is not arbitrary, hostile, or punitive, has also been found to be beneficial.
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