Bossy, easygoing, tiger: what sort of a parent should you try to be?

David Cameron has stepped into a minefield with his plan for parenting classes and backing for the American "Tiger Mother" 

Samantha Cameron said last year that her eldest child, Nancy, then 11, was keeping a diary of growing up as the prime minister's daughter. She said of Nancy: "She's always, like, 'I'm on chapter five, Daddy. How Your Life as Prime Minister Has Affected Me. Chapter two is when you left me in the pub.'" 

Superficially, it would appear that the Camerons run a household that acknowledges (or surrenders) to the idea that, when it comes to children, the age of deference is dead. The notion that parents know best - or, come to that, know anything at all - is not even up for negotiation.

Children is some families are tailoring their own childhoods, technologically savvy, occasionally bumping into their double shift-working parents; like, whatever.

Last week, however, in a major speech at the charity Family Action, David Cameron placed his parenting banner firmly in the territory now colonized by the fiercely competitive mother, American Amy Chua, triggering yet again a debate about which parenting style works best - and the tools families really require to give their children a decent start in life.

Chua is the author of the controversial Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother, published in 2011. In it, she detailed how she reared her daughters, Lulu and Sophia, now at Harvard and Stanford, to alpha levels. The regime included no sleepovers, no extracurricular activities, three hours of music practice a day, and Chua's constant eagerness to "excoriate, punish and shame". In short, motherhood operationalized as a full-time grueling commando course. But is it good for children?

In the US in the 1960s, psychologist Diana Baumrind named four types of parenting styles: authoritarian, authoritative, permissive and neglectful. She argued that the ultimate goal for children is for them to develop their own internal controls. What is needed in "good enough" parenting, she argued, is not the imposition of a standard pattern but a recognition that every child is different and they vary in how they should be treated. The best outcomes, Baumrind said, came from authoritative parenting: caring, responsive and consistent.

That's the ideal, says Adrienne Burgess of the Fatherhood Institute, but nobody gets it right all of the time. White inflexible, tiger mothering (or fathering), Burgess points out, is a form of authoritarian parenting, deemed one of the least successful ways to raise rounded children. "Intensive parenting is a high-risk strategy," she says. "There's no warmth, only negativity. A 'good' child may knuckle down, but another child won't"

David Cameron seems to have conflated two different schools thought around parenting to concoct his own "Tiger-lite" approach. Last week he described Chua's approach more benignly than it is: "Work, try hard, believe you can succeed, get up and try again."

This reward for effort, not achievement, comes from the work of American academics such as Carol Dweck and Professor Martin Seligman and the latest developments in neuroscience around how parental involvement is crucial to building a baby's brain. The aim, however, is not to push children to the top at all costs - the Chua route - but to teach children that resilience and graft get you further than you thought possible. So why not give it a go?

What Cameron may or may not understand about parenting styles matters because he has given the issue a central place in the Life Chances Strategy he launches in the spring, "setting out a comprehensive plan to fight disadvantage and extend opportunity". The strategy replaces family income as a metric on poverty and instead takes into account parental behavior such as unemployment and addiction.

"We all have to work at it," the prime minister said parenting. "What about ... when it comes to play, communication, behavior and discipline?... Is it right that all of us get so little guidance? I believe we now need to think about how to make it normal - even aspirational - to attend parenting classes."

In addition to parenting classes and vouchers, he announced proposals that include tackling mental health, demolishing sink estates and increased funding for relationship support.

Crucially, he also seems to have abandoned the view of successive governments that pursuing policies seen to be interfering in the family is tricky. Cameron has a new adviser, Christmas Guy, former director of the Certer for Social Justice.

In a blog last year, Guy rightly wrote: "We are stuck in a culture of low ambition for the poor... A new approach would be rooted in the most successful poverty-fighting institution of them all: the family." Cameron echoed that thought last week. "Families," he said, "are the best anti-poverty measure ever invented. They are welfare, education and counselling system all wrapped up into one."

Penny Mansfield, of the relationship charity One Plus One, says that what Cameron says about family demonstrates an interesting political move. "Successive governments have seen the family as the problem," she says. "Now, Cameron is viewing the family as the solution. That's potentially a very important shift."

In 1956 Sir Raymond Firth found that people, on average, could count 146 relatives in their "kin universe"; plenty to give a hand with holding the baby or offer a word of advice when a child turned into a hormonal, door-slamming teenager. Now the family support network has shrunk, sometimes, to a single parent and child. This is even as the knowledge about the importance of what we do as parents in shaping children's aspirations and non-cognitive "soft skills", such as persistence, delayed gratification and self-discipline, expand.

Cameron's references to character and resilience and parenting support delighted Baroness Claire Tyler, co-chair of the all-party parliamentary group on social mobility. However, the group's paper on parenting and social mobility published last year pointed out: "The present parenting support offer across the UK is fragmented, with little leadership from national government." Tyler adds a further warning: "The challenge with parenting courses is that, because of government policy over the years, it's too strongly associated with stigmatized groups and problem families."

New Labor launched a national parenting strategy which rapidly became associated with punishment and compulsion. Cameron's "new thinking" is to universalize parenting support. However, regardless of what style of child rearing you choose, family life does not happen in a vacuum. Last year the charity Family and Childcare Trust gave the government a D in its annual report card on family-friendly policies that include income, childcare, flexible employment and housing. Julia Margo, chief executive, says: "Parenting classes will make no difference at all if you can't afford to put a meal on the table for your family." A couple working full time on the minimum wage fell short of what they required in 2015 by 75 pounds a week.

Research by Professor Kitty Stewart and Kerris Cooper of the Center for Analysis of Social Exclusion at the LSE, drawn from 1988 to 2012, found that "more money directly improves the development and level of achievement of children ... Conversely, reductions in family income... are likely to have wide-ranging effects."

Stewart adds: "If income rises in low income households, maternal depression drops. We don't have knowledge about so many issues, but we do know that a decent income, affordable high-quality childcare, and a strong support system matter to life chances. Instead, all three are being damaged."

A recent report says that disadvantaged families are the most likely to use children's centers reduced by more than 750 since 2010, for offering parenting support. They liked, "the open-access, walk-in activities... because they did not feel there was a stigma attached". Parenting courses can and do work but, as critics point out, they are costly, and local authorities have empty coffers. 

Yet, given a decent income, childcare, housing and employment, most parents manage well. But without those foundations as a part of Cameron's Life Chances Strategy, there is a danger that the blame for staying glued to the bottom rungs of the ladder of opportunity will be unfairly attributed to a personal lack of moral fiber - and poor parenting. And that's not so much "new thinking" as stepping back to Victorian times.

Four styles of parenting 

1) Authoritative 

Warm, communicative, demanding, responsive. These parents want their children to be assertive, self-regulated and socially responsible. They have freedom of expression, but clear boundaries. This style of parenting tends to produce rounded, competent adults.

2) Permissive

Warm and accepting, lenient, avoiding confrontation, these parents try to be a friend to their child. Some overcompensate for what they lacked as a child, so they try too hard to give the freedom and material goods they lacked - or are so frazzled or occupied by work that they give material goods in exchange for a child not demanding time and interest. 

3) Authoritarian 

Strict and controlling. A disciplinarian style that allows no negotiation, little autonomy for a child and no choice. Demanding of a child and not very responsive. Researchers say that, as a result, children tend to timid, have low self-esteem and to rely to an unusual degree on the voice of authority. Then they may rebel.

4) Negligent / uninvolved 

These parents demand nothing and give nothing, so there is very little stimulus for a child, limited development and no boundaries. This might amount to physical and emotional cruelty. Parents have little understanding of what a child needs to flourish.