The early years between 0-6 years of age are most important periods which have significant effects on social-emotional development for oncoming years of individuals (Cummins and McMaster, 2006; Dewar, 2013).

Intelligence, personality traits and social behaviors are composed in this critical period (Al-Elaimat, Adheisat & Alomyan, 2020). Now that children constitute a bond within their environments to explore the world around them, one of the foremost factors that shapes the child’s personality is parents (Seçer, Çeliköz, & Yaşa, 2007).  According to Dewar (2013), the more positive regard of parents towards children, the better well-adjusted children are possibly raised. Regarding all these, executing a review study on parenting styles are essential especially in early childhood years (Işıkoğlu Erdoğan, Tetik, & Yoleri, 2017).

Parenting Styles

According to Baumrind (1971) parenting style is a variation in parents which are the ways used for controlling and socializing their children. In 1960s, Diana Baumrind identified three parenting styles which are named as authoritarian, permissive and authoritative (Chen & Ren, 2019). As an extension of Baumrind’s study, Maccoby & Martin (1983) named fouth style  as neglectful parenting (Ihmeideh & Shawareb, 2014).

Baumrind states the parents who are authoritative give importance to children’s ideas and wishes and they have a relationship in which each individual is aware of their roles and duties in a democratic environment (Chen & Ren, 2019). Oppositely, the parents who are authoritarian shows high level of control on their children, the ones who does not obey the rules are probably forbidden (Kaya, 2010). Permissive parents do not put any boundaries for their wishes and generally these children are not charged responsible for their own (Özyürek, 2017). Lastly, neglectful parents behave as if the child does not exist at all (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

In addition to the mentioned conventional parenting styles, there are some parenting styles terms which can be classified as nonconventional which are emerging recently.

Yılmaz (2019), has developed a scale about “Helicopter” parenting style which refers to parents who have exaggerated endeavor in case of any possible danger or failure towards their children. As well as Helicopter parenting, Kohler, Aldridge, Christensen & Kilgo (2012) has explained “Tiger mom” parenting style which identifies the term as the exact symbol of power especially giving exaggerated importance of success and career of their children.

Also, when studies are examined about the parenting styles in early childhood period, any systematic review study is not encountered both in Turkey and in other countries. Sümer, Aktürk & Helvacı (2010) has done a systematic review article study about parenting styles in psychology field but it does not include early childhood education period studies especially. In that sense, current research aims to synthesize the findings about parenting styles articles which are done regarding early childhood period both in Turkey and in other countries.

 So, research questions of the study can be explained as follows;

• What is the scope of parenting styles studies executed within the scope of early childhood years?
• What is the scope of prevalence of studies about conventional parenting styles alongside nonconventional ones?
• What is the scope of parenting styles to consider the involvement of fathers as well as mothers in research process?

In this current study, the main database was searched for reaching the relevant literature about parenting styles in early childhood years at first. For this aim, related databases were reviewed as EBSCHOhost by using METU (Middle East Technical University) Library, ERIC, Science Direct, Google, Google Scholar. While searching for related literature, various combinations of keywords are used as ‘parenting styles’, ‘parenting attitudes’, ‘parenting’, ‘early childhood’, ‘early years’, ‘kindergarten’, ‘young children’ both in English and Turkish language. After the first search in related databases, 7708 articles were reached. These articles are eliminated regarding some requirements. While including the related studies for this research, following requirements are taken into consideration: 1) Research should be executed within a sample from Turkey or other countries, 2) Research should include conventional and unconventional parenting styles, 3) Research should have been done within the scope of early childhood years, 4) Research should be in article format which is published in national or international journal, 5) Research should be conducted between 2010 and 2020 years. 6) On the other hand, the thesis studies are not included in this study because of some hindrances to reach all related ones. Lastly, the declared notices in national or international congresses which are not published as a final paper are not included in this study.

After searching the articles regarding the requirements, 105 articles were selected to be reviewed. As the result of this process 67 articles are included in the study. Some articles included keywords like ‘parenting styles’ or ‘parenting attitudes’ are not included in the study because content of the study was not including parenting attitudes or styles. For example, an article written by Bojczyk, Haverback, Pae, Hairston & Haring (2019) the relationship between young children’s literacy skills and parenting practices about home literacy is executed because this does not fit with nature of the study. While reviewing the articles, following information are recorded in the table. These are; name of the study, authors, publication date, study area, number of samples, age group of samples, location of the study, parenting styles which are studied, gender of the parent who are studied with, method of the study, instruments, variables and results of the study. Current study analysis is being recorded in a table. Regarding this information, expected results can be organized as follows; 1) It is expected that some studies might be grounded on the conventional parenting styles, while others can be grounded on other parenting styles which can be named as nonconventional like helicopter parenting, American dreamers, tiger parenting, lawnmower parenting, snow plough parenting. 2) There might be a difference between percentage of the studies executed with mothers with percentage of the studies executed with fathers regarding the parental roles. The possible reasons of this issue are will be discussed in the following parts. 3) There might be a difference between children who are reared with authoritative parenting style with authoritarian parenting style regarding social emotional development of children regarding prosocial behaviors, school readiness, family-child interactions, emotional intelligence, attitudes towards risk taking play. These results will be discussed in detail after data analysis.

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