THE BEST PARENTING STYLE

From life experience, I have noticed parents normally take one of 4 different approaches when training their kids. I have named them the following: Mean and Lenient; Mean and Firm; Loving and Lenient; and Loving and Firm. Some of the first 3 styles have pros, but also cons. The approach I have called “Loving and Firm” trumps them all the other styles and is recommended by top experts in child-raising such as James Dobson, Henry Cloud, John Townsend, and Jim and Charles Fay. I will briefly go over each style and review the pros and cons of them all.

MEAN AND LENIENT

Mean and lenient parents are the ones who get very angry with their children, and will shame them, scold them, and threaten them, but set no real consequences for the child to learn a lesson. When these children are young you will hear the parents providing numerous threats to their toddler to get them to stop what they are doing or come, when the child should be dealt a consequence immediately when there is no response. When the child is older the parents will have big arguments with their teenager over their behavior or lack of responsibility, all while providing wifi, cable TV access, cells phones and a taxi service, when the teenager could do with the removal of some of these many privileges until the rules of the house are respected.

Pros and Cons

This style really has no pros. The cons are that relationship with the child is damaged when the parent gets very angry like this and says shaming and condemning words. Relationship with your children is a strong motivator for cooperation and obedience, this is damaged when we shame, threaten, or verbally abuse our children. Without actual consequences, the children just continue in their misbehavior with a new-found resentment of their parents for their hurtful words and threats. Often the parents feel that providing consequences to the child is mean, but in reality, the anger and frustration they feel when their children consistently do not listen causes much more harm to their children.

MEAN AND FIRM

Mean and firm parents provide consequences for their children, but do so with anger, frustration, lectures, threats, shame and damaging words. The children have rules that are enforced with boundaries and punishments, but they are often accompanied by a tongue lashing of some kind. Often these parents can be controlling, and the root of their anger and frustration with their children is their need for control.

Pros and Cons

The pros of this style are that the children do receive consequences and boundaries, and so are raised in some structure. The cons are that the treatment from the parents when the child misbehaves often causes disconnection with the child rather than trust, love and respect. As said before, connection and love is a strong motivator for cooperation and children, and without this connection, rules and consequences may bring some level of obedience, but they often bring resentment when there is no or little connection and love present. Another con is that often when a parent allows themselves to bring anger into the equation, they can be very harsh with their consequences of punishment and it can turn into abuse.

LOVING AND LENIENT

These parents have no or few consequences and boundaries in place for their kids because they feel any kind of limits would be mean, they feel scared their children will not like them, or they are simply passive and do not take the initiative to provide structure and training. They run themselves ragged doing and giving their children what they want when they want. The reality is these parents are not being loving, they are being selfish and cowardly.

Pros and Cons

The pros are that in this situation the parents may be in fact quite loving, and so a lot of the child’s emotional needs are met. Some cons are, that children also need structure and boundaries to feel safe and secure, and to successfully make it in the real world when they are older, such as in their career, and relationships. These children are very often unpleasant for adults and other kids to be around because of their lack of respect and empathy for others, and often they grow up to be very selfish people with strong narcissistic traits. The parents that avoid setting boundaries with their children for fear of losing their love are often manipulative and emotionally attach to their children in a very unhealthy way, causing lots of addictive tendencies and emotional issues when the child grows up.

LOVING AND FIRM

This is the style that probably has no cons, except that it can be hard to apply at times. Here is what I have learned that Loving and Firm parents do differently than the other parenting styles.

Loving and Firm parents provide good rules, boundaries and appropriate consequences for their children, but do so with kindness, empathy and compassion. These parents allow the firm consequences to do the teaching rather than using shame and scolding. The lack of scolding, lecturing and shaming when the child disobeys does not cause damage to their relationship with their children, and showing kindness and care when delivering the consequences makes the relationship stronger, which provides greater motivation for the child’s cooperation. L&F parents know that: Rules with no relationship = resentment; relationship with no rules = rebellion; rules with relationship = respect. This is why L&F parents aim to keep the relationship strong and avoid relationship destroyers when providing consequences. When a child is put in time out, rather than the parent saying, “stay in here until you’re quiet!” they will say something like “looks like you need some time to yourself, feel free to come out when you’re calm, I love you.” When an older child forgets to do a chore, there is no yelling, scolding or reprimanding, just a “Uh oh, looks like no video games/tv for a week. Sorry honey/buddy, I know it stinks. What do you think you should do so it doesn’t happen again?” For a teenager that constantly breaks the rules, there is no arguing or fighting about their behavior, Loving and Firm parents take away the cell phone, taxi services or some other privilege until the behavior stops, and they do so with love and sincere sadness for the discomfort of the teenager.

Loving and Firm parents provide immediate consequences for misbehavior or ignored commands. Although many parents feel mean by delivering a consequence immediately, often the frustration they feel from having to repeat themselves and the constant disobedience causes them to be much meaner than they feared. L&F parents know this and so they deliver the consequences if there is no obedience the first time. This helps them to stay calm and not get frustrated, as well as helps them keep a loving and kind attitude towards their children. When a toddler does not respond to a “no” or “come here” within a few seconds or less, Loving and Firm parents provide a swat or a time out straight away. There is no repeated commands or counting, only action. Loving and Firm parents know that however many chances you give your children before they receive a consequence, is the amount of chances your child will take before they behave. If you repeat yourself 4 times or count to 5 before you deliver a consequence to your child, your child will wait until the third time you repeat yourself or until 4 and 3/4s of a second before they obey. If you threaten your children 5 times to stop fighting before actually turning the car around from going to McDonald's, then your children will continue to fight until after the 4th time you repeat yourself. And you will continue to be frustrated; so frustrated. However, if a consequence is delivered immediately when there is not obedience the first time they are told something, the child will learn to obey immediately the first time they are told something.

Loving and Firm parents don’t make their children’s problems their own. Often when children create problems for themselves, parents will take responsibility in fixing it, because it’s mean not too. A child might leave a school project until the night before and the mother then goes shopping late at night and doesn’t get any sleep trying to put a project together, because it would be mean not to. A son breaks something, and the father fixes what is broken himself and just gets angry with his son and gives him a good shaming because making him fix what he broke would be mean. Another child may not put their dirty clothes in the dirty clothes hamper and take it to the laundry room, and so the mother feels she must always check their rooms and gather their dirty clothes for them because to not do so would be mean. In reality, parents that make their children’s problems their own just become very frustrated and then respond in anger to their children causing disconnection and emotional hurt, and also cause their children to not learn responsibility. A child that leaves their school project till the last second should be asked what he or she is going to do now to get their grade back up. A son that breaks something should be responded to with “uh oh, you broke the gate huh? That stinks. What will you do to fix it? Do you need me to show you how?” or “You don’t have money for the broken window? That’s ok, I can think of a few extra chores for you to do to earn the money to pay for it.” A child that doesn’t put their dirty laundry in the hamper must face the consequence of running out of socks or underwear. Having to wash a pair of socks under the sink, blow dry them with a hair dryer and getting in trouble for being late for school might be just what they need to start taking responsibility.

Loving and Firm parents do not try to control their children, they allow them to make their own choices and simply make the bad choices as painful as possible. Unless in the case of immediate harm or danger, a Loving and Firm parent’s attitude is: “You are free to make your own choices, however, if you make the wrong one, then I will do such and such, which will be very unpleasant for you. Whatever you decide is fine by me.” When a parent’s goal is to control their child, it is very frustrating when the child is not responding the way the parent wants. If there is less of an expectation as to how the child will act and simply an appropriate consequence or response when the child does not follow the rules of the house, it is a lot less frustrating for the parent. Parents that do this aren’t affected as much by their child’s misbehavior or poor choices. They may feel sad for the child, but they aren’t as frustrated and angry as parents that expect their children to act a certain way. When the child makes a poor choice, the child is the one who suffers, not the parent. When a house rule is broken or a responsibility is not followed through on, L&F parents don’t care that much; they aren’t the ones who will have their allowance taken away, have extra chores, or will be without their Xbox, it’s the child that suffers. This may seem mean, but on the contrary, parents that aren’t worried about the choices the child makes because they are the ones who will face the outcome, can more easily remain calm, loving and supportive when they children make bad decisions. The parents that are disappointed and angry because their children did not do what was expected are the ones who act mean.