<P> Frank Furedi is a sociologist with a particular interest in parenting and families . He believes that the actions of parents are less decisive than others claim . He describes the term infant determinism as the determination of a person's life prospects by what happens to them during infancy, arguing that there is little or no evidence for its truth . While commercial, governmental and other interests constantly try to guide parents to do more and worry more for their children, he believes that children are capable of developing well in almost any circumstances . Furedi quotes Steve Petersen of Washington University in St. Louis: "development really wants to happen . It takes very impoverished environments to interfere with development...(just) don't raise your child in a closet, starve them, or hit them on the head with a frying pan". Similarly, the journalist Tim Gill has expressed concern about excessive risk aversion by parents and those responsible for children in his book No Fear . This aversion limits the opportunities for children to develop sufficient adult skills, particularly in dealing with risk, but also in performing adventurous and imaginative activities . </P> <P> In 1998, independent scholar Judith Rich Harris published The Nurture Assumption, in which she argued that scientific evidence, especially behavioral genetics, showed that all different forms of parenting do not have significant effects on children's development, short of cases of severe child abuse or child neglect . She proposes two main points for the effects: genetic effects, and social effects involved by the peer groups in which children participate . The purported effects of different forms of parenting are all illusions caused by heredity, the culture at large, and children's own influence on how their parents treat them . </P> <P> Diana Baumrind is a researcher who focused on the classification of parenting styles . Baumrind's research is known as "Baumrind's Parenting Typology". In her research, she found what she considered to be the four basic elements that could help shape successful parenting: responsiveness vs. unresponsiveness and demanding vs. undemanding . Parental responsiveness refers to the degree to which the parent responds to the child's needs in a supportive and accepting manner . Through her studies Baumrind identified three initial parenting styles: Authoritative parenting, authoritarian parenting and permissive parenting . Maccoby and Martin expanded upon Baumrind's three original parenting styles by placing parenting styles into two distinct categories: demanding and undemanding . With these distinctions, four new parenting styles were defined: </P> <Table> <Tr> <Th_colspan="3"> Maccoby and Martin's Four Parenting Styles Baumrind's Three Parenting Styles </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> </Th> <Th> Demanding </Th> <Th> Undemanding </Th> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Responsive </Th> <Td> Authoritative / Propagative </Td> <Td> Indulgent (Permissive) </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Th> Unresponsive </Th> <Td> Authoritarian / Totalitarian </Td> <Td> Neglectful </Td> </Tr> </Table>

Who identified the authoritarian permissive and authoritative styles