Parenting Blog

My Aha! Parenting moment this week happened when a reporter asked me about the four different parenting styles that psychologists say describe most parents.  These were originally developed by Diana Baumrind about fifty years ago, and are accepted by most child development specialists today.

The four styles are:

1. Authoritarian- These are parents who have high expectations of their kids, which is a good thing, research shows.  That’s how kids get good grades, learn to manage themselves responsibly, and stay out of trouble.  The problem with these parents is that they don’t offer their kids much support.  It’s pull up your socks, straighten up and fly right, my way or the highway.  These parents were usually parented this way themselves, and think they came out fine, but research shows their kids end up rebellious – and looking for love in all the wrong places, like the peer group.

2. Permissive- These are parents who offer their kids lots of support. Nothing wrong with that at all.  The problem with these parents is that they don’t have high expectations.  Some of them believe that’s a good thing – they wouldn’t want to get in the way of their child’s natural development.  Others just can’t bear to have their child face something difficult even for a moment, so they make a lot of excuses for their kid.  Most of these parents are trying hard not to repeat their own parents’ tough-love parenting style, so they go overboard in the other direction.  Don’t get me wrong – you can never offer your child too much respect and empathy.  But you can certainly prevent them from learning responsibility and developing confidence in themselves by always rescuing them.  And if you let your child walk all over you or other people, what are you teaching him about relationships?  These kids are often self-centered and spoiled.  Worse yet, they’re often miserable and insecure because they haven’t been helped to learn internal discipline to accomplish anything.

3. Uninvolved- There have always been parents who can’t give their kids the love and attention they need, either because of alcoholism, narcissism, or just external pressures like needing to work two jobs to support the family.  But these parents seem to me to be even more prevalent today, at least in some communities, where we rationalize thrusting kids into daycare at ever earlier ages for ever-longer hours, and then as they grow up we push them into the arms of their peer group, so that we have little or no influence on them by the time they’re teenagers.  These parents sometimes vanish into drug addiction or abandon the family, but there are plenty of seemingly normal families where the parents are too focused on their own work or social lives to engage deeply with their kids.  It’s not unusual to see these parents lavish money on their kids instead of attention.  This is always a message to the child that he isn’t worth loving, and if both parents are uninvolved, you can pretty much count on the kid having substance abuse or other major issues.

4. The final parenting style, is, of course, the one Baumrind’s research showed raises the best-adjusted kids. The Authoritative parents offer their kids lots of love and support, like the permissive parents.  But they also hold high expectations, like the authoritarian parents.  Age-appropriate expectations, of course – they aren’t expecting a three year old to clean up her room by herself.  But they may well be working with that three year old to help her clean up, over and over and over, so that by six she really can clean up her room herself.  These parents are involved -- even demanding.  They expect family dinners, lots of discussion straight through high school, good grades, responsible behavior.  But they also offer their kids complete support to learn how to achieve these expectations.  Their kids, not surprisingly, stay close to them – they often describe one of their parents as the person they would most trust to talk to about a problem.  These kids are usually high achievers in school, and they’re also the ones that teachers describe as responsible and well-liked, simply nice, considerate kids who are a pleasure to have around.

Where’s the Aha! Moment in this?  Well, the reporter asked me to describe how each style of parent would handle a couple of specific incidents.  For instance, what do you do when your child brings home a bad report card?

Authoritative- Yells at kid, and without any discussion grounds them until next report card, which had better have improved grades. End of discussion. Maybe a tutor is hired, which is presented as a punishment, and maybe substituted for an activity the kid loved, like playing basketball.  The kid is left de-motivated, angry, and has to figure any improvement out for himself.

Permissive- Listens empathically. Accepts child’s excuse that it’s all the teacher’s fault, and asks the child to please try to do better next time.  She may tell the child she believes in him, or even make a suggestion about working harder – but she doesn’t give him any real help in figuring out how to change things, in the form of new structure so he can actually accomplish real change.

Uninvolved- What report card?  Or, if they do see it, they don’t notice that it’s a Xerox and some of the grades have been changed.  Don’t laugh – some of my son’s friends did this routinely in high school.

Authoritative- Asks child whether he’s surprised by the report card, and lots of other questions about what happened. Listens empathically.  Asks child what he thinks he can do to learn the material and bring his grades up. Agrees on a plan with the child: No more texting, chatting, listening to music, web-surfing or tv while doing homework. (Most kids can’t handle these distractions; they’re a privilege, not a right.)  No more TV during the week to allow extra study time for catching up with the work. 

Homework will be done at dining room table next to the parent, who will be doing her own paperwork, (or if it’s done before the parent gets home, it will be explained to the parent, because the best way to learn is to teach.)  The parent will make these study sessions an opportunity for fun and connection, with some nice moments of humor and maybe a nightly snack.  The parent will also help the child study for every test and will give a final read to every paper.  The parent may need to help the child learn to structure his time, keep track of assignments, and stay organized. 

Weekend homework will get done on Saturday mornings rather than Sunday nights. Naturally, the child is unhappy about this new regimen, and the parent commiserates: “I know, it’s a big change.  You liked things the old way.  But it wasn’t fair to you – it wasn’t helping you learn the material and do well in school.”  Notice there’s no punishment, no blame, nothing punitive at all. 

The parent also reassures the child: “I am committed to you learning this material and doing well in school.  I know this seems hard, but I promise you that in a month you will feel so much better about school.  You will be understanding what is going on in class and showing your teachers how smart you really are.  You have all the brains you need to do this work. You just need some help to learn to organize yourself and keep up with the work.  That’s hard for most kids.  But I’m here to help.  And at the end of the month, when we hear from your teachers how much progress you’ve made, you ‘re going to be so proud of yourself -- and you and I will celebrate together.”

Now, here’s the Aha Moment.  The reporter responded, “But isn’t that authoritarian? Making them give up TV?  I thought authoritative was a middle ground, so you would give some punishment – maybe ground them for a shorter time.”

And that was my Aha!. Most parents think the best parenting course is the middle ground, the compromise.  But they still think in terms of punishment, so they’re always looking for the appropriate discipline for a given infraction.  So it ends up being a  middle ground of discipline, with some punishment – but they also settle for a middle ground of reduced expectations.

But what best serves our kids, what is often called Authoritative, doesn’t have any discipline.  It has just as high expectations as Authoritarian.  There’s no permissiveness, no compromise, no middle ground, in our expectations. But there’s also no need for discipline, which just alienates kids.  Instead, these kids get tremendous empathy, and all the help they need in learning to manage themselves, from their parents.

The difference between authoritarian and authoritative is the understanding and respect offered to the child. The difference between permissive and authoritative is the high expectations.  And the difference in parental involvement should be obvious – the authoritative parents are the most involved of any of the parenting styles.  Which is probably why they’re happier parents.

So there’s no middle ground here, no compromise in giving our kids what they need. High expectations, high support.

That’s an Aha! Parenting moment. And one of the biggest secrets of happy parents.

"No amount of 'parenting skills' can make up for the lack of a close parent-child relationship. Kids accept our guidance because of who we are to them. Without that relationship, it’s very hard to parent. A close bond not only makes our kids want to please us, it gives us access to our natural parenting know-how. Welcome to the work of parenting.  But it's where the rewards are, too." -- Dr. Laura Markham

We've almost completed the ten steps of Heal Our Ability to Love Unconditionally.  Step Eight is:

Deepen your connection to your child so you always see things from his or her point of view.  Your unconditional love will flower.

Loving our kids unconditionally means we accept and appreciate our child -- this separate, increasingly autonomous, immature, sometimes challenging person -- without needing to make him into someone other than who he is.  It means we SEE who he is, and love him in the way that he can best feel our love -- which is different for every child.

To do that, we need to see things from our child's point of view.  But to meet his long-term needs rather than just his immediate wants, we also have to provide appropriate parental leadership.  How do we do both? 

1. Cultivate deep connection.  If you stay deeply connected to your child, you'll automatically see things from her point of view.  Then all this becomes natural. Instead of having to bite your tongue when your daughter is rude, you'll feel her pain and know that something must be very wrong for her to be rude to you like this.  You'll know that your child doesn't take in your love when you say it in words, but feels deeply loved when you cuddle or hold her.

2. Stay connected when your child is upset.  Instead of giving your child the message that her strong emotions are too scary for you to handle by sending her away "to calm down," stay with her, and stay connected.  Let her rage or grieve.  Empathize and validate her feelings without adding to the drama by losing your own calm. We don't help our child by having a meltdown along with him. Our job is to empathize but provide a steady shore, not to flail in the water alongside him.

3. Make sure your child knows you're on his side.  That doesn't mean giving him everything he wants.  It means saying Yes whenever you can, and validating his feelings of unhappiness when you have to say No.  Children can accept not getting what they want in a given moment if they get something better -- complete acceptance and appreciation of who they are, including those sometimes difficult, messy emotions and desires.

Being close to your child takes work. But it's your child's emotional foundation. It's also the foundation of the close relationship you're hoping for once he's an adult. The rewards, at every step along the way, come from connection.

Loving unconditionally means it's not all about us. It's all about love.

"Let there be times when you don't tell someone everything you know about her problem, even if your understanding of it is better than hers." -- Guy Finley

Ever notice how kids don't really want to hear your solutions to their problems?  Teenagers, particularly, often react with downright hostility when we give them our good advice.  But even eight year olds like to think they can solve their own problems.

And they can. Especially if they have a parent with a warm heart who's willing to really listen, and simply reflect what they say.  "Hmm...So you got pretty mad, huh? ...Sounds like you're considering giving him a piece of your mind.....But you think that might make things worse?...You're wondering if it might be better to....."

Before you know it, your kid gives you a quick hug and dashes out the door.  With lots of confidence in his ability to sort out his own life.  What a wonderful parent!  And what a lucky kid.

Guest Blog by Joanne Stern
author of Parenting Is a Contact Sport
ParentingIsaContactSport.com

Listen to Joanne Stern live on Dr. Laura Markham's radio show!
Wednesday July 8
MyExpertSolution.com
(9amPT/10amMT/11amCT/NoonET)

When you overhear other parents bad-mouthing kids from the sidelines

Badmouthing kids at a sporting event is not only inappropriate. It’s obnoxious and disgusting as well, and most parents know it and feel it the second they hear it. They feel uncomfortable because they’re torn between doing something and doing nothing. They may suddenly become engrossed in conversation with a neighbor to cover up the noise. They may get overly absorbed in the game and pretend they don’t hear. They may choose to walk away to avoid the scene altogether. Or they may struggle internally trying to figure out what to say that would challenge the bad behavior without causing an even bigger stir.

As parents we already know two things:
1.  We are role models to kids—not only to our own, but to others as well, and our behaviors speak loudly to kids about who we are as people.
2.  We can’t police the world and we can’t control other parents, even though we might like to.

But sometimes we forget another important thing: that we have the opportunity for very powerful and positive input with our kids within our own homes. So, take advantage of situations in the outside world to teach our kids the valuable lessons we want them to learn.

Tip #1
Talk with your own kids at home about what happened at the game—even if they didn’t hear the badmouthing—and use the conversation as a springboard to reinforce the importance of sensitivity, good sportsmanship and compassion.

Tip #2
Badmouthing another, under any circumstances, is the ultimate in disrespect. Use this opportunity to talk with your kids at home about your family value of respect. Reconfirm that you treat them with respect and you expect them to treat you and others with respect as well—no matter what poor role models they may see in other adults.

If you feel the need to do something about the badmouthing itself:

Tip #3
Comment quietly and calmly to the offending parent about what a shame it would be if the team were penalized for offensive behaviors from the stands.

Tip #4
Talk with the coach after the game and ask if he/she would address the issue.

Tip #5
Counteract the badmouthing with cheers and words of encouragement to the kid being badmouthed.

"You got to accent...uate the positive, elim..inate the negative ... latch on...to the affirmative..."  -- Johnny Mercer

Want to try an experiment that will transform your child’s behavior in a week?  Step one is to accentuate the positive.  Acknowledge  every positive thing your child does with as much enthusiasm, appreciation and specificity as you can.  Do this as many times a day as you can catch your child doing something right, accompanied frequently by an affectionate hug.

"You and your sister played so happily together this afternoon."
“I’m so pleased with how you picked up all your toys!  You must be so proud of yourself!”
“The dog loves it when you feed her.  Look how happy she is!”

Step Two?  Eliminate the negative!  No matter how bad your child’s negative behavior, keep your emotional response flat as you set limits. No punishment, just limits.  Staying calm is tough, but kids live off our emotional energy.  If they get it only for positive behavior, not for negatives, they'll repeat the positive behavior.  The negative behavior will diminish and eventually disappear as the child develops a positive self image.

Fair warning: Intense kids need lots of intense energy, so muster all the enthusiasm you can.
What do you have to lose?