ParentRise

by Loretta Maase, M.A.

Getting the best from our children is directly connected to how we, the parents, go about the business of parenting. To understand what’s going on in our homes, it helps to understand our own individual parenting styles.

What does our parenting style have to do with peace in our homes and responsibility in our children? Everything! First, let’s establish who the real parenting experts are. It’s you and me, our children’s parents. We know our children, their moods, their needs, their hurts, and their dreams – like nobody else does and that makes us our own parenting experts. Given that perspective then, it's helpful to identify a few generalized concepts that you, the parent, can apply to your specific situation. One of those concepts is understanding your style and overlaying it with your specific parenting goals to see if your goals and style match up. Is the way you’re going about the business of parenting supporting your goals as a parent? In other words, is your style getting you what you want as a parent? Is your style fostering respectful communication? Effortless responsibility for chores? Homework accountability? Sibling harmony, or at least polite compatibility? How about honesty?

As mentioned above, there is great value in understanding and establishing your goals as a parent – your personal parenting plan. You do have a style and a plan, whether you are aware of it or not. You know what your hopes, dreams, and visions are for your family. Even if your vision is simply to get your children to voting age in one piece, you still have a vision. So, it serves you well to understand what your vision is for your family and your plan for getting there.

*Note: If you’ve been through a separation or a divorce you have probably worked out a Parenting Plan with your children’s other parent and the courts. However, if you need assistance establishing or understanding your official, court-ordered Parenting Plan, please see the resources at the end of this chapter. The plan referred to in this chapter is your own personal parenting plan.

Let’s look at the four primary parenting styles. If you are like most parents, you have a combination of styles. However, we typically have a main, dominant style, with a lesser combination of one or more of the other styles. As we consider these, try to identify your style(s).

The Hovering Parent

Let’s look at a typical day in the life of a Hovering Parent. The parent (that would be you and me – and to avoid gender bias and let the stereotypical single-mom off the hook, we’ll refer to all examples using ‘the parent’) wakes the children up in plenty of time before school. Because the children don’t want to get up, the parent must go into the kids’ bedrooms 3 or 4 times before finally dragging them out of bed. The parent fixes breakfast while simultaneously getting ready for work and reminds the children five times to eat or they’ll get hungry.

After arguing for 10 minutes about wearing coats because it’s cold outside, the parent finally gets the kids to school and goes to work, only to get a phone call that one of the children has left her homework at home and the world will implode if she doesn’t get it right away. The other child has left his lunch at home, and because he neglected to eat breakfast as his parent insisted he should, he’ll starve if he doesn’t get his lunch. So, the parent goes home, gets homework and lunch, gets back to the job only to find out that vital work, and therefore income, has been lost because of the errand home.

In the evening, the parent stands guard over homework and chores, nagging and pleading, until they all go to bed exhausted and in tears.

The Hovering Parent rescues the children from the consequences of their behavior: wakes them because they won’t respond to an alarm, takes them their lunches and lost homework, hovers over their chores and evening homework, fixes speeding tickets and bails them out of jams over and over again. The Hovering Parent can’t stand to see the kids hurt. After all, they already have so much pain and confusion in their lives.

Children being raised by a Hovering Parent never really learn to take responsibility for themselves. They know that mom or dad will bail them out, deliver their homework, and pay their speeding tickets when they get them. The problem is, in real life employers don’t make wake-up calls, lost work can get you fired, and speeding can be costly, or even deadly. In this scenario, children or young adults may not understand on a gut level that speeding can lead to tragedy. They just assume they’ll get bailed out of a problem should one arise.

Hovering parents want to ease their children’s stress and minimize their pain. The parent goes the extra mile because, after all, they are only kids. Children of Hovering Parents rarely suffer the outcome of their choices and, therefore, don’t get to learn from their mistakes. But, in order to develop personal responsibility, children must be allowed the freedom to make mistakes and learn from them.

If we want to ease our children’s stress and minimize their pain, isn’t it kinder to let them fail when they actually do fail - and live with the fallout while under our umbrella? It’s better they learn about lost work from a teacher than an employer.

The Authoritarian/Drill Sergeant Parent

The heart of the Authoritarian/Drill Sergeant’s approach is to punish and discipline mistakes right out of a child. Let’s look at a typical day. The children don’t wake up with the alarm so the parent yells at the children and threatens to spank them if they don’t get up. When they do get up, the parent lectures the children about not getting up on their own. They all get to breakfast cranky and late. The same thing happened yesterday and it will probably happen again tomorrow.

The children forget their lunch and homework. The parent does leave work to help the children, but let’s them know they’ve blown it, again. That night, when the family gets home, the parent grounds the children for their irresponsibility and threatens worse if it happens again. When they argue and fight back, the parent takes away TV privileges because of the kids’ disrespect, and after struggling with homework and chores, all go to bed early, exhausted, and in tears.

The next day one of the kids forgets his homework again, only this time he lies to the teacher about it. He tells her that his parent drove off with it in the car and promises to turn it in the next day. He never turns it in. So he gets a C on his report card and loses TV privileges because of the bad grade. His older brother gets a speeding ticket but hides it – for as long as he can. He’s been grounded so many times that he’s simply learned to hide things going on with him. This child doesn’t necessarily learn the virtue of driving safely. He simply learns to get by under the radar, so to speak. He does what he wants when no one’s looking. Meanwhile, the 17-year-old daughter waits for the parent to leave home for a while and then invites her boyfriend over. She knows it’s wrong and against her family’s rules, but she knows how far she can sneak things before getting herself in trouble. She ultimately gets herself in trouble and blames the parent because of the overly strict rules and constant punishment. She doesn’t yet appreciate that her personal choices will bring her life-long consequences - because she’s learned to sneak around the rules.

We call this “rebellion” and wonder why our children act out as they do. One reason children rebel is that they are consistently punished for their mistakes and shortcomings rather than made to live with the logical consequences of their behavior. These children often think along the lines of: “I’ll do it when mom or dad’s not looking so I can get away with it.” One of the major risks of the authoritarian/drill sergeant parenting style is that children don’t learn to internalize control for their behavior. They look to others to provide the control through punishment and rules. And they learn to sneak around accordingly. When a teenager learns to do something simply because she’s “told to do it”, what happens to her when the balance of power shifts from her parents to her peer group (and boyfriend), as happens with teens?

Because these children blame the punishment, they never learn that choices and real consequences are often quite mathematical. If I do this, then this will happen. One plus one equals two. Rather, children of Authoritarian/Drill Sergeant parents learn, “if I do this and you don’t find out about it, then it’s ok.” One plus one equals nobody’s business.

The Permissive Parent

The permissive parent is sometimes described as the fun or easy-going parent. This parent will wake up the children a time or two in the morning, or even put an alarm clock in the room so the kids can wake themselves. When the kids finally do wake up and get to breakfast they find some milk and cookies and get to school, and only a few minutes late this time. Or, maybe they get to sleep in again because they’re tired and just need a good mental health day at home.

When they get to school they tell the teacher that they lost their homework again and take the bad grade as it comes. They won’t get in trouble at home. After all, kids have too much on their shoulders anyway. That evening, the parent helps the kids with homework by giving them some of the answers, takes them out to get a movie, keeps the kids up late watching a show that none of their other friends get to watch, and they all sleep in late the next morning because they had such a late night.

The teenage boy gets a speeding ticket –again- which eventually gets paid. He wrecks the car, but it’s ok - he didn’t get hurt. The teenage girl and her boyfriend spend the afternoon in her bedroom, playing video games and playing around. Kids will be kids. And because there are very few real-life lessons with real-life consequences, nobody’s thinking about what tomorrow might bring. Tomorrow brings teen sex and teen pregnancy and the parent takes on another child to raise.

Children raised by Permissive Parents have difficulty understanding that their behavior really does matter and that life will sometimes hand you (pretty unpleasant) consequences that really are directly related to their own choices and behavior. Children of Permissive Parents typically have difficulty predicting and solving problems – since they so rarely have to deal with them. The problems generated by this style of parenting are obvious: employers do care what time employees show up, creditors notice late payments, and new offspring will need at least 18 years of care.

The Authoritative or Dis-cip-ling Parent

Disciple - noun: The term disciple is derived from the Latin word discipulus meaning "a learner". (Wikipedia)

verb: to teach or to train

Using the above definitions, the Authoritative or Dis-cip-ling Parent teaches or trains the learner or student. This parent nurtures a child’s development, neither imposing punishment nor neglecting responsibility. The Authoritative Parent trains a child in the way he should go. The heart of this parent’s approach is a commitment to character development, the kind of character development that influences children’s decision-making processes – regardless of who’s looking (or not looking, as the case may be).

The authoritative parent provides an alarm clock in the children’s bedrooms and teaches them how to use it. The parent describes the morning routine and compassionately explains what will happen if they get up on time and what will happen if they don’t. In the morning, the children get up on time when the alarm goes off so they don’t miss breakfast. Unfortunately, one child leaves her homework behind and the other forgets his lunch. The teacher calls the parent who then simply explains that the first child will more than likely remember her homework next time if she has to stay in at recess today and do it over again.

The other child will have to borrow money for lunch that he’ll have to pay back or go hungry until dinner. He will quickly remember his lunch the next day, as going hungry all afternoon is very uncomfortable. He was also cold during recess because, even though his parent suggested a coat, he didn’t bother to grab one. The next day, all by himself, he remembers to take his lunch and his coat with him to school, all the wiser.

In the afternoon, this parent makes it clear to the children that they can get to the fun just as soon as their homework is done. The parent is nearby, in case they have questions, but only participates when asked for help. The children know not to whine about homework. It’s understood – they are free to do what they want after their homework is done. Whining results in quiet time in their rooms so that the rest of the house can be at peace, and they still have to do homework when they get up. Choose wisely.

The teen driver worked two jobs in the afternoon to pay for his own speeding ticket and driver safety class. He learned in the class that speed kills. He never got another speeding ticket.

The teen daughter understands and respects family rules and invites her boyfriend over when her parent is home. She doesn’t even think of inviting him over otherwise. She has had to make and live with real-life consequences so many times during her few short years that she naturally respects her family’s boundaries and, within reason, finds very little cause to challenge them. Sound like a fantasy? It doesn’t have to be.

The Authoritative/Dis-cip-ling Parent has nurtured a mutual bond and respect with the children based on love and consistently setting and sticking with boundaries. When the son fails to make curfew he doesn’t get grounded or punished. He simply has to be home earlier the next time out. One plus one equals two, with compassion. This parent knows that consequences also come in good packages – adding an extra hour to curfew because the daughter comes home on time all month without fail. Children raised within this system are more likely to understand responsibility in the work force, at school, as young adults, and as parents themselves. They spend an entire childhood under their parent’s supportive and watchful eye, learning to get it right one choice at a time.

Which style are you? To learn more about your own parenting style, download the 'Parenting Style Questionnaire' under Parenting on our website.

© Loretta Maase, M.A. All Rights Reserved. Loretta Maase, M.A., - Executive Director of Parent Rise. Ms. Maase has an undergraduate degree in child development and a Masters degree in Counseling, with a specialization in child development and parent-education. She is the author of 'The Parent Rise Connection' parenting program for single parents. As former Regional Director of two foster care agencies, clinical director of The Parenting Center of Albuquerque, and therapist in private practice, Ms. Maase has taught parent education to hundreds of parents since the 1980’s. She is the proud parent of two daughters, Lily and Arielle.