Unintended Consequences of Parenting Styles

The greatest gifts you can give your children are the roots of responsibility and the wings of independence.

~Denis Waitley

 
Parents: I think all of us can agree that we want to see our children happy, admirable, and successful.  But, how we help them achieve this is all over the map, isn’t it? When I grew up, authoritarian parenting was the norm. Those were the days of “Because I said so,” and non-negotiable chores. Teens were expected to leave home after graduation, whether that meant to college, a job, or the military. The ball was in their court to sink or swim. Tough love ruled the day.
 
Times have changed, in part because of the pitfalls associated with this approach to parenting. However, as it usually happens, the pendulum swings to the opposite extreme. We overcorrect and new issues surface. Like now.
 
Despite our best intentions, sometimes our parenting methods can get in the way of achieving our objectives. Although our children bear the primary responsibility for how their lives turn out, parenting influences are significant. With this in mind, and understanding that there are no perfect parents, we’d like to share some inadvertent consequences we see in three of today’s most common parenting styles.
 
Helicopter Parenting
In our efforts to be an involved parent and protect our kids from failure, we can micromanage and control them if we’re not careful.  Figuratively speaking, we can’t let go of the handlebar. We hover, orchestrate, remind, nag, interfere, and even do their homework and chores. Although we don’t like to be treated that way by our own supervisors, we often display these tendencies with our children. The bottom line is this: we stunt their social-emotional growth and skill development and rob them of the joy of doing things themselves.
 
Here are telltale signs of children and young adults who have been helicoptered: low self confidence, co-dependence, poor life skills, difficulty with problem solving, lacking resilience/coping, weak conflict resolution, and a poor work ethic and motivation. College administrators and employers are regularly observing these.    
 
Performance Parenting
Although we all want our children to succeed, some parents take this to such an extreme that they appear to value performance more than the person. They view their children’s outcomes as a direct reflection of their parenting and can apply intense and unfair pressure to perform to unreasonable standards. Common parent behaviors are harsh responses to report cards, competitive comparisons to siblings or friends, forcing their careers onto their children, complaining to teachers and coaches when grades/play time are disappointing, and defending poor child behavior in teacher/administrator meetings.
 
It is especially painful to visit with students on the receiving end of this parenting style. Telltale signs in children are lacking self worth/value, anxiety, depression, intense fear of failure, untruthfulness, resentment, isolation, cheating, coping challenges, blaming tendencies, and sibling rivalry. Additionally, significant relationship strains are common when the child doesn’t perceive the parent as a safe person with whom to share fears, dreams, and life. Not surprisingly, resentment and distance are frequent outcomes, especially in the adult years.
 
“Buddy” (or Permissive) Parenting
Parents also have an intense desire to raise happy children and provide a harmonious home environment. Often, the teen years are challenging on both fronts as pressure builds and children express their independence. These years are exhausting! In response, many parents are pursuing a child-centric approach to life and inadvertently raising children who think the world revolves around them. At the extreme, these parents treat their children as friends, abdicating any sense of authority. Common examples of this are enabling, failing to enforce discipline/consequences, doing their children’s basic chores, allowing excessive time allowances for technology, etc., living vicariously through their children, passivity in the face of disrespect, and endlessly giving in to their children’s desires.
 
Telltale signs in children affected by this parenting style are entitlement, disrespect for authority figures and rules, arrogance, lacking motivation and work ethic, manipulation tendencies, and addiction to pleasure sources. They believe the world owes them a happy life and often struggle in the competitive adult world.   
 
Do any of these sound familiar in your parenting or your children? Most of us can “plead guilty” to at least a few. So, with the dawn of a new year, why not take a pulse check to your parenting? Are any midcourse corrections in order?  
 
Here’s to making 2018 your best parenting year ever!