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Raising Responsible Children
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There are three distinct
parenting styles or approaches related to raising responsible children, each producing different results:
Punishing, Authoritative, and Indulgent. Punishing and Indulgent
parents allow children to externalize back to the parent the
primary responsibility for managing the child's behavior. Authoritative parents,
on the other hand, tend to raise children who over time internalize
responsibility for their choices and behavior. These children
tend to grow up to be much more well adjusted and, therefore, happy. |
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I believe this to be true:
Show me a chronically irresponsible or under-responsible child, and
I will show you an overly responsible parent who is likely frustrated or
struggling to maintain control.
What does this mean? How can a parent be overly responsible
in today's world? Isn't this just
another example of blaming the parent?
Absolutely not!
It means there is a reciprocal relationship between parents and children
regarding responsibility. If and when someone drops the ball (or dirty
sock), someone has to pick it up! It means we need to carefully look at
what works and doesn't work in raising children to become responsible and
dependable adults.
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Definitions
Let's define our terms -
Punishing, Authoritative, and Indulgent. Carefully examine these three
charts describing the characteristics, goals, and typical
results of each parenting approach. Use the BACK button on your
browser to return to this page.
Characteristics, Goals, & Typical Results: Parenting
Styles
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As you just discovered,
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Punishing parents tend to use
punitive, escalating, and external pressure through grounding, spanking,
"taking away", yelling, threatening - to try and control their children.
Children respond by seeking power through rebellion, deception, and
argumentativeness. Children refocus arguments on whether or not the
parent is "fair", instead of examining whatever they did to invoke the
punishment in the first place. Bottom line: Punishing parents
work way too hard in
this power-struggle based approach.
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Authoritative parents, on the other hand, are quietly confident in their
parenting. They know children make mistakes and learn best by
experiencing natural and logical consequences. They do not need to
"invent" ever-escalating punishments, but, "allow the
consequences
to fit the crime." They give their children choices - so that the child can
decide about their behavior - and therefore learn over time to make
responsible choices. Bottom line:
Authoritative parents guide, not control, their children by empowering them
to make good choices and experience natural and logical consequences for
poor choices.
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Indulgent Parents
seek to avoid the escalating conflicts and arguments characteristic of
punishing approaches. Here, others
suffer from the child's poor choices as natural and logical consequences are
removed. The child is "bailed out" too often. Child fails to
learn to connect "real world" consequences with their self-absorbed
behaviors and choices and lacks empathy for the needs of others.
Bottom line: Others suffer the consequences of the child's poor choices and
the child fails to grow.
If you would like more
information on natural and logical consequences, specific examples on how to
give choices, the importance of parents being on the "same page", or "how to's" in raising responsible
children, feel free to contact us to set an appointment. With the right
tools most parenting struggles are fixable, and the sooner the better!
Daniel L. Baney, Ph.D. Psychologist HSPP
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