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What's your parenting style? · Head Shrink Inc.

• 0:24
  SPEAKER_00: Hey all friends.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: I'm thinking I'm gonna call you all the people that listen to the show head shrinkers.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_00: Right?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: My fellow head shrinkers, hello, welcome to another episode of the Head Shrink Ink podcast.
• 0:37
  SPEAKER_00: So today I want to talk about parenting styles.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_00: So some of you may already may know what these styles are.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_00: So if you do, um please still listen in, because then if I say something wrong, you can email me and correct me, which people love to do, by the way.
• 0:53
  SPEAKER_00: And if you don't know what they are, then you'll actually hopefully learn something today.
• 0:57
  SPEAKER_00: So there's lots of there's probably lots of different parenting styles.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: These, what I'm gonna talk about are the four main types of parenting that go on in the world.
• 1:09
  SPEAKER_00: And out of these four, there's generally one that is accepted as the ideal.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: And when I when I talk about this in front of groups, and I'll get the question like, well, sometimes I do whatever, right?
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um sometimes I yell at my kids.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, I've yelled at my kids before.
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: But what I make sure to tell them is that when I talk about these parenting styles, it's consistency over time, is what is important.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're this style and you're this style consistently over time, um, that potentially is a problem depending on the style that you have.
• 1:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but if you're occasionally that style, that's not as much of an issue because sometimes you just are tired as a parent and you let your kids do stuff that normally you wouldn't let them do.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and that's parenting style.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: But if you were always letting your kids or often letting your kid do things that they shouldn't be doing, that's another problem, and that's a parenting style.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_00: So let's let's dig into it, alright?
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_00: So there's four main parenting styles.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the first one, and they're in no particular order of importance here, but the first one I want to talk about is an authoritarian parenting style.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of times when when I am working with a family and there's an authoritarian parent in the family, what comes to mind is this idea of a drill sergeant.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um, someone who must be obeyed.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, you can't question them.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: If you do question them, then um you will get punished.
• 2:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um a parent that is an authoritarian parent views children's as as they view their children as people that need to follow strict rules established by them, the parents.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um failure to follow such rules, no matter how silly they are, um, result in a punishment of some sort.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um sorry, I'm muting my email.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a detail guy, so sometimes I forget that stuff.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you if a kid asks an authoritarian parent, hey, why do I have to do this?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: the parent may simply just say, Because I said so.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_00: Um these parents that are authoritarian usually have pretty high demands and they're not responsive emotionally to their kids, generally speaking.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: Um, where I've had when I've talked about this in groups, I I do get the occasional question, and this is why I referred to it earlier, like it's consistency over time, is what matters.
• 3:53
  SPEAKER_00: But the question is, like, well, I my kid doesn't do X.
• 3:57
  SPEAKER_00: X could be a chore or whatever.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so I have to get on their butt sometimes to get them to do it.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, I just get tired of it, and and so that's understandable because I think kids sometimes don't do chores.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe your kid doesn't do chore a lot, and I mean that's a whole separate issue potentially, and so we do have to get on kids' rear ends occasionally and and you know uh tell them that there's gonna be some kind of consequence, and if they try to get out of something, we have to maybe be pretty stern with them.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So I say that because it's okay to be authoritarian at times.
• 4:34
  SPEAKER_00: It's again, it are you doing it um over time?
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't know if you're doing it over time and you're uh and you have a a partner that you're with, you could ask them because they'll have a pretty good um understanding of this idea if you do it over um a long period of time or if you're consistently authoritarian.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: Um they may have even said something to you about it because it's something that affects um their kids in a negative way.
• 5:03
  SPEAKER_00: But you do not want to be an authoritarian parent.
• 5:06
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's okay to talk to your kids generally at times, but overall, you do not want to be an authoritarian parent.
• 5:13
  SPEAKER_00: Um, generally, in my experience, when when kids have had authoritarian parents, they usually don't have close relationships with them when they leave the home, or those are the kids that want to get out of the home, and so they leave as soon as they can, and then there's just not a great relationship often after.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_00: Uh kind of a cliche bumper sticker phrase that I have heard is um rules without relationship equal rebellion, right?
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_00: And so authoritarian parents are great at rules, but they're not great at relationships, which is fine.
• 5:47
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, that's something you can get strengths in and go to you know, go to parenting classes or a therapist or whatever to learn how to cultivate relationships with your kids.
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a second parenting style is a permissive parent.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Now, a permissive parent, um, they can be called indulgent parents.
• 6:08
  SPEAKER_00: Um, these parents are the ones that have very few demands to make of their children, they rarely discipline their children because they just have low expectations of maturity and and and they themselves don't have great self-control.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_00: And these are the parents that want to be buddies with their friends or with their kids, they want to be the friends of their kids, they want approval from their kids, and I often will see well, I guess I shouldn't say often, I sometimes will see um parents talking about their kids on social on social media like their kids are a peer with them.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you know any parents that um will make comments like they're my best friend, I can tell them anything, I don't know what I would do without them, those tend to be statements of most likely a permissive parent.
• 7:06
  SPEAKER_00: Now, um permissive parents are generally nurt, they're they're pretty nurturing, they're communicative with their kids, um, but they when it comes to being assertive with their kids, that gets to be a challenge.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot of times the kids will run the house or kids will have tantrums, and then the permissive parent will do whatever they can do to get the kid to stop having a tantrum.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um these are the parents that often will say, Well, I'm just gonna let them drink in my home or have sex in my home or smoke in my home because they would do it somewhere else if they were out of the home.
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_00: While that may be true, there does need to be some kind of standard in your home about what's appropriate and what's not appropriate.
• 7:49
  SPEAKER_00: And permissive parents really have a difficult time in enforcing rules and boundaries in their homes and often in their own lives as well.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_00: And what I've seen is like this often comes from the parents' own family of origin.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: Um, a lot of times permissive parents will come from an upbringing where there was rigidity to the extreme, and so then they were in this rigid home and they thought to themselves, I will never be like this.
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and so then they have kids of their own, and then they're often fighting with, oh, I I need to enforce this boundary, but then I don't want to be like my mom, or I don't want to be like my dad, and then they don't make right choices as parents.
• 8:32
  SPEAKER_00: So occasionally you might be tired.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
• 8:36
  SPEAKER_00: Who knew?
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: You have kids, you might be tired, you might be worn out, and so sometimes you may let kids do things that you normally wouldn't do.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: That doesn't mean you're a permissive parent.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's consistency over time again.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so if you're consistently letting your kids do things that um to make your life easier, um, that would be not a good thing.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_00: But if it happens occasionally because you're just worn out, you've had a busy day, you worked hard, you and your spouse maybe are having an argument, or you just don't want to do it do dinner, and so you just let them have chips for for dinner or something like that, that does not mean you're a permissive parent.
• 9:14
  SPEAKER_00: It's consistency over time again, and so that's something to pay attention.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't know if you're a permissive parent, look and see what kind of things you're saying on social media about the relationship with your kid, or you could even ask your um your again, ask your partner, do you think I'm a permissive parent?
• 9:31
  SPEAKER_00: Then explain it.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: And if they're if you and your partner have a good authentic relationship with one another where honesty can be spoken, then they will they will tell you.
• 9:41
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you don't have a relationship like that, then they're not gonna be a good source of information for you.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um a third parenting style is called uninvolved parenting.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I mean that question right I mean that statement or that adjective right there, um is that an adjective?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think it's an adjective, it's a descriptor, right?
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_00: So my uh high school English teacher would be horrified.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Um so an uninvolved parent is characterized by few demands, low responsiveness, little communication.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um they are close to a permissive parent, but they um are different than a permissive parent in that they are not emotionally connected to their kid and they have no interest in emotionally being connected to their kid.
• 10:32
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's also it also can be called neglectful parenting.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I see that occasionally I just met with someone today where they're very it's a teenager that's very self-sufficient.
• 10:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they don't rely on anything from their parents, and their parents seem to have fostered that in them.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_00: And to me, as a dad who loves my kids and who wants to be involved in their lives and who tries to nurture them, my wife's my wife does a way better job.
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: But as someone who wants to try to nurture my kids, I feel I feel a little bit sad for this kid because she recognizes that her parents are uninvolved and she's just come to be used to it, I guess.
• 11:14
  SPEAKER_00: And so then it does create and uh it often creates a kid that is independent and potentially assertive, but it but those parents then if they eventually come to a place where like we want to have influence over a kid, that is gone because um there's consequences to uninvolved parenting, and and I think a consequence is like you're not going to be connected to your kid pretty much at all.
• 11:40
  SPEAKER_00: You'll be fairly disconnected, actually.
• 11:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um, again, now consistency over time.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_00: If there's times where you just need some self-care and you just need to take a break from your kids, that does not mean you're an uninvolved parent.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: It means you're human and that you need breaks and you need to take care of yourself.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, if you're doing that all the time, though, um that potentially is a problem because I think there's there's certain ages that kids actually do need parents that are kind of invested.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: And and I'm working again with another case right now where it's a divorced family and and the mom just gives very basic um care to the kids, and these kids are you know they're preteens, and it's it's not good for these kids, but then it's no one's willing to say anything to the mom, and I've never met the mom.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: So it's um it's uninvolved parenting is not a great thing, and and so if you're uninvolved, um I would encourage you to figure out a way to get a bit more involved because those those kids that are younger than let's say 12, that it's really important for them to have a good influence of a parent in their life, and when they don't, um then bad influences usually get involved in their lives.
• 12:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um, let's go to the fourth style.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_00: So the fourth style is called authoritative parenting.
• 13:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now it's a little different, you know, the word is different, it's not authoritarian, it's authoritative.
• 13:08
  SPEAKER_00: Now, this is honestly, this is the ideal parenting style.
• 13:12
  SPEAKER_00: Um these are the these are the parents that kind of that I would say do it all.
• 13:20
  SPEAKER_00: They're responsive emotionally, but they also provide good boundaries.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um, they're willing to listen to questions.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Uh when children, when your kids don't meet your expectations, they're they will have conversations.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, there'll still be consequences, but they'll have conversations about it and they'll be more forgiving rather than punishing punishing.
• 13:41
  SPEAKER_00: These parents are more assertive, but they're not intrusive and restrictive.
• 13:45
  SPEAKER_00: Their disciplinary methods are uh supportive uh rather than punitive, they want their children to be assertive as well, as socially responsible and self-reg regulated as well as cooperative.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is the ideal, honestly.
• 13:58
  SPEAKER_00: Um so if you're doing this consistently over time, um you're gonna be in potentially you're gonna be in usually a good place with your kids because they're gonna feel secure in their relationship with you, and you're gonna have hopefully an easy back and forth ability to have conversations with them.
• 14:17
  SPEAKER_00: Um this is the uh a much more stable place to parent from.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um and so one thing to consider with these four styles is that a lot of how we parent today, you you and I as parents, how we parent, a lot of it comes from our families of origin.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_00: And so a lot a question that I often ask people when we're talking about something that's kind of difficult as an adult, I would say, like, what did 12-year-old insert parents' name, what did 12-year-old Johnny do when this thing would happen?
• 14:51
  SPEAKER_00: And oftentimes what 12-year-old Johnny did is what um adult Johnny is trying to do, but in relationship with kids or in relationship with a spouse or partner.
• 15:02
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the things, if you're wanting to think, okay, why do I do what I do as a as a mom or as a dad, think about that, what you're doing, and did 12-year-old mom and dad do that?
• 15:15
  SPEAKER_00: And if you if the answer is yeah, I did actually do that when I was 12 or 13, or I saw my mom and dad do that to me when I was 12 and 13, or mom and dad did the opposite to me, and so I swung to the other end of the pendulum, right?
• 15:29
  SPEAKER_00: And so, again, like I said earlier, you may have grown up in a home where there was this chaos where chaos reigned.
• 15:35
  SPEAKER_00: And you told yourself, I will never have chaos in my life when I have kids.
• 15:40
  SPEAKER_00: And so now you're an adult and you are you micromanage your children's schedules, you mark micromanage your partner's schedules, and you just chalk it up as I just like to be in control.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_00: But in reality, it's directly related to this experience you had in your family of origin.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, that's something to pay attention to because that to me means there's some underlying stuff going on there that might be beneficial to talk about because a lot of times the stuff that you're doing in present day that's related to your family of origin is not healthy for the relationships that you're in.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: It's not healthy for the the parenting stuff that's going on with you in your family in your present day family.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_00: Um, as always, I would love to have any questions that you have sent my way, headshrinkinc at gmail.com, or you can go to my website.
• 16:33
  SPEAKER_00: That's actually my Facebook page, Head Shrink Inc or Doc David.
• 16:37
  SPEAKER_00: I'll be found at both those locations.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_00: And as always, have a great day.