This paper summarizes the components of effective parenting for which substantial empirical support is available and discusses the problems inherent in attempts to determine the characteristics of effective parents in order to amend the process of socialization through the modification of parent styles. The aspects of effective parenting discussed include parental sensitivity or empathic understanding of the child, authoritative versus authoritarian and permissive parenting styles, consistency of parental discipline, parents as role models, single-parent families versus intact families, working mothers, and day care. The major problems inherent in drawing inferences about parenting from research on socialization are identified as: (1) the difficulty of determining the direction of effects in correlational data, (2) the implicit assumption that all children are equally and similarly malleable, (3) the numerous sources of socialization influence other than parents, and (4) the difficulties of investigating the content as well as the style of parental demands. (JMB)