Go into any grocery store and supercenter in the country and you are walking into an observation lab on parenting. You’ll find children who are lying in the aisle throwing temper tantrums over a candy bar. You’ll find parents yelling and threatening their kids with inches of their lives. You may even find children who are behaving and acting like they have some sense.
One type of parenting of which we need to be especially wary is permissive parenting. It is exactly what it sounds like. It’s the school of thought teaching parents to say yes as often as possible. These parents indulge their children and make very few demands. Permissive parents often do not exert discipline with their children for fear of squelching their creativity and self-expression. Parents may fear their children will rebel if they attempt to discipline them, so they try hard to be a friend to the child.
Here are some dangers to the Permissive Parenting approach:
- Depending on your child’s age, self-regulation is not possible. To expect a five-year-old to regulate his own emotions and act in a mature fashion is expecting something nearly impossible on a good day. We need to teach our kids how to handle difficult emotions and we do that by allowing them to be disappointed and helping them work through the emotions that accompany that disappointment.
- Permissive parenting makes our kids believe the world revolves around them. We as parents, however, know that is definitely not the case. The world does not stop when we have a bad day or don’t get our way. It does not cater to us or often even care when we don’t like something. Our kids need us to teach them how to adjust when life hands us lemons.
- The world doesn’t always say yes. If we prime our kids to think they will always get a “yes,” it will be quite shocking for them when they get a “no.” If our children think whining will always get them what they want, they will be floored when a professor or boss says no. We need to teach our kids they are not always right and there will be times when we have to settle for a “no.”
- Children need consistent discipline. They crave boundaries, although they will never ask for them or admit it. They need to know when Mom says no, she means no; not “If you whine and make a scene I’ll change my “no” to “yes.” When we are inconsistent with our discipline, our children learn they can’t trust what we say. That shapes the way they think about the rest of the world. If they can’t trust us, who can they trust?
- This way of parenting is exhausting for the parent. When our decisions are challenged by our children on a regular basis, it can often feel like we can never do anything right. When everything is a fight to get your child to mind, it’s enough to make any parent throw in the towel.
If this style of parenting describes you and you are interested in improving your parenting, it might be time to contact a family therapist or individual counselor. There are no perfect parents, but research has shown us a few approaches to parenting that help our children become self-confident, productive members of society. A therapist or family counselor is often familiar with these approaches and can help you put the facts discovered through research into action.
