Parenting Styles Represent The Different Strategies Parents Use To Raise Their Children And To Set The Mood And Tempo For Their Family To Follow

Parenting Styles vary with the parents and the children whom they raise.

One style may work well with one family and its unique circumstances while that same style may prove ineffective with another family and its different makeup and circumstances.

It is interesting to note the various Parenting Styles that have been identified and to see which Style you most closely associate with.

Are you happy with the Style of Parenting you currently use?

Are you even aware of the Parenting Style that you use?

What are the likely outcomes of using one Parenting Style over another?

Which Style is right for you and your family?

Authoritative Parenting, Permissive Parenting, Authoritarian Parenting, Natural Parenting, Helicopter Parenting, and even the use of Parenting Humor; Parenting Styles are as diverse as the Parents who use them.

Let’s have some fun and explore this issue more.

It Figures - © AydinGrace

Children come in all shapes and sizes, as do the parents who raise them.

Every parent comes into the realm of parenting with a unique set of beliefs and expectations regarding what type of parent they are going to be with their children.

Many of these views come directly from how they were parented themselves; from direct experience while in the home.

All Parenting Styles can be learned and unlearned to suit the needs of the parent and of their children.

The same parent may use different Parenting Styles with different children, and this is as it should be.

In the realm of parenting there is no such thing as One Style Fits All.

Attachment Parenting espouses the belief that children must experience strong emotional bonds with their primary care givers, preferably their parents, during their childhood years in order to form caring, normal and empathetic relationships in adulthood.

Attachment Parents seek to avoid unrealistic expectations for their children and to set limits and boundaries that are age and maturity specific for their children to follow.

Natural Parenting, also known as Attachment Parenting without the label, is a parenting style that is in harmony with our emotions, the natural environment we live in, and with our instincts as parents, and providers of all things good for our children.

It revolves around respecting our children for the unique people that they are and to mentor and discipline in ways that avoid coercion and force. It is to responding to our children’s needs in the moment in a natural, fluid and case by case way.

Permissive Parenting is characterized by parents who are warm and accepting yet have few behavior expectations for their children. As the name suggests, these parents are permissive (Tolerant, Indulgent, Lax) with their children.

The results can range from healthy and independent children to immature children who blame others for their failures, lack self-control and are emotionally and socially immature.

Authoritative Parenting holds high expectations for child behavior, sets rules and expects compliance with the same, and encourages open and honest dialogue between parent and child.

Authoritative Parents are warm and responsive to their children and in matters of discipline are fair, measured and consistent.

Authoritarian Parenting also holds high standards and expectations for their children but do not explain the reasoning behind the rules and boundaries, and do not allow for an open discussion between parent and child.

Authoritarian Parents are quick to spank their children and show a marked lack of responsiveness to their children’s needs and feelings. These children often show a lack of initiative and social competence as they are seldom allowed the freedom to think and act for themselves during their formative childhood years.

Parents provide a loving and accepting atmosphere for their children while allowing the natural consequences of the child’s behavior to do the teaching, especially in the child’s early and formative years.

Parents offer age-appropriate teaching opportunities so the consequences of a child’s poor decision are neither life threatening nor overly dramatic on the child. In this way a child learns to make proper choices and to think for himself or herself from a very early age.

Common Sense Parenting is, as the name implies, the desire to bring common sense and sound judgment into the parenting process. It seeks to help parents encourage positive behaviors in their children while helping their children to learn positive alternatives to their negative behaviors.

Common Sense Parenting (CSP) is adapted from successful childcare methods developed by Girls and Boys Town which seeks to teach parents such basic yet essential parenting skills as communication, discipline, and self control in their children.

Young man and woman taking pictures of each other © ralphbijker

Parenting happens at the speed of life.

Before you know it those children who were once young and just staring out are now teenagers careening towards adulthood and future parenthood experiences based on the examples of parenting you have shared and lived with them.

It is important that you parent your children in the manner you would wish your children to parent your future grandchildren with as that is most assuredly what will happen.

Another parenting style to consider is the form known as Helicopter Parenting, or being a Helicopter Parent. These parents are so named because they hover so close to their young adult or grown children, like a hovering helicopter, eager and ready to swoop in and save the child from anything and everything that may happen, whether the child needs or wants the saving or not.

It should be noted that not all Parenting Styles are worthy of our admiration or emulation. We can often learn what to do by discovering what not to do, as is the case with Helicopter Parenting.

Helicopter Parenting is to take parental zeal a step or two too far, including the temptation to actually do your adult children’s university school work for them, trying to negotiate your adult child's starting salary at a new job for them, and otherwise taking over a child’s life to the detriment of the very child they are seeking to help but unwittingly hurt.

And all of this leads to the one essential ingredient to success in life and especially as a parent; and that is humor.

Parental Humor is essential to a positive, balanced and happy parenting experience for both parent and child.

Life can be funny, and parenting can be absolutely hilarious.

It is important to see the humor in parenting and to not hold back the laughter when you are confronted with a “Laugh or Cry” Parenting moment.

There is no problem so severe but what can be quickly put into its proper perspective with a hearty bought of laughter.

Parenting Humor abounds in the world. Make sure to catch your fair share of it and to share it with the ones you love.

Choose the Parenting Style or Styles that feel right to you and that produce the best results in your children at any time, for any reason, over and over again.

Practice the Parenting Style that is right for you and best for your children!

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