Parenting Styles - A Personal Decision
Many of us may not even know we have a parenting style
. The term just describes the different ways people have of raising their children. We can think of parenting styles as a range from the most to the least controlling. Parents who exert the most control tend to want to protect their children as much as possible and make sure that they hold certain values.
There is the authoritative style, which is having demanding parents that are also responsive. They supervise and pass on clear values for their children to follow. They are firm, yet they are not invasive and restraining. Their counteractive techniques are encouraging, instead of disciplinary. They want their children to be self-confident as well as socially conscientious and self controlled as well as accommodating. This is often a good balance for a child.
Lenient parents are often very permissive and offer no direction to their children. They are more approachable and much less tough. They are not conventional, and are quite indulgent. They do not ask for adult conduct, allowing substantial self rule, and they avoid any type of conflict with their child. Lenient parents can be separated further into two types: democratic parents, who, though indulgent, are more reliable, available, and dedicated to the child, and parents with no directives. There needs to be more structure in this type of parent.
Every parent and child develop patterns of interacting. Many children thrive with more authoritarian parents. Other children do very well with parents who set few rules and allow the child a great deal of freedom. One very important consideration is consistency. It's very confusing to children when a parent insists upon certain rules one day but not the next. It can also be a problem for children when two parents have inconsistent standards of behavior due to different parenting styles.
It is said that the definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and expect different results. That certainly could be said of parenting styles. If a parent's style is very authoritarian and the child is very rebellious, it does not make sense for the parent to issue more rules and hand out more punishment. That is likely to just increase the child's rebellion. It may be more helpful to talk to the child about his or her feelings about the rules of the household and see if some compromises can be made.
A parent who allows a great deal of freedom should think twice about continuing that approach if the child seems unable to do his school work. If a child's grades are going down, his parent needs to supervise homework more and turn off the television. It is not responsible parenting to allow the child just to fail and learn from that experience.
As we raise our children, we often learn a great deal along the way. That is one reason why grandparents are often so wonderful for children. Grandparents generally have learned the value of being flexible as we cope with the situations that confront us in life. We need to remember that flexibility in our styles of parenting can be very important in helping our children succeed.
by: Wawan Hermawan
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