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Strollerderby
We recently told you about a study that found certain parenting styles, often dictated by a parents personality, can affect a child’s mental health. Therapist Stacy Kaiser, in her USA Today blog, has listed four predominant parenting styles that she sees in her own counseling practice: Laissez-Faire, Authoritarian, Helicopter and Disengaged. Any of these, when displayed in the extreme, can harm kids rather than help them. She believes the best approach is to combine bits of each, because “… children raised with elements all of these styles combined tend to be more cooperative, self-regulating, socially responsible and have the least anxiety and highest level of self esteem.”
So … which parenting style are you?
Does parenting matter? Not as much as you think
If you’re reading this article, odds are overwhelmingly good that you’re already a good enough parent. Go ahead, pat yourself on the back. You’re almost certainly doing everything you can to ensure a happy, successful future for your children.
It doesn’t matter if you co-sleep or Ferberize. It doesn’t matter if you let them free-range all over the neighborhood or helicopter them from one enrichment activity to the next. Breast vs. bottle, working moms vs those who stay home, all of it pales in comparison to the impact of two big factors: parents’ income, and parents’ (especially mother’s) education.
If you have a college education and a stable middle-class standard of living, odds are good you’re raising kids who will have those things too. Beyond that, what matters most to the outcome for your kids, researchers say, is the environment they’re raised in.
Most of us are familiar with the three main parenting styles: Authoritarian, Permissive and Authoritative. But Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell has discovered yet another style. And while nobody can deny that this particular parenting style exists, plenty are upset with the term she’s coined to describe it: Ghetto Parenting. Continue reading »
A post on Free-Range Kids today drew me to this 2008 idle parenting manifesto published in the Telegraph and written by Tom Hodgkinson, author of the How to be Free and How to be Idle. In it, he says, “Pushy parents don’t help by making childhood a stress-filled time of striving and competing.” Sandy posted earlier today about the negative impact competition can have on girls who play only to win, and Helaine reported Monday about the Canadian parents who sued their local hockey team for cutting their sons. Which is why, when people ask if I’m going to enroll my 4-year-old in dance class, I always say absolutely not.
To be sure, my daughter is a very gifted dancer, and I adore watching her float and bounce around the house like the natural she is. (As you can see from these videos taken last fall, she’s developed two distinct techniques: ”ballet moves” and “rock-and-roll moves.” On a side note, I can’t believe how much she’s matured since then!) It’s not that I don’t want to nurture her love of dance, it’s precisely because I want her to continue to love dancing that I haven’t enrolled her in structured class. I realize Tiger Woods wouldn’t be Tiger Woods were he not trained from age 2 how to be the world’s best golfer, but as we all know, his athletic prowess and (perhaps deserved) grandiose sense of self has lead to other problems.
So maybe we modern parents are doing too much for our kids. Hodgkinson writes in frighteningly accurate detail about the ways we fritter away our children’s time. He says, “Our children’s days are crammed full with activities: ballet, judo, tennis, piano, sport, art projects. At home they are entertained by giant screens and computers. In between, they are strapped into cars and made to listen to educational tapes. Ambitious mothers force hours of homework on bewildered 10-year-olds, hanging the abstract fear of “future employers” over their heads.” Even back in 2008 he was concerned about the overuse of technology, adding, “Then they buy them a Nintendo Wii, the absurd, costly gadget that’s supposed to bring some element of physicality to computer games. It’s only a matter of time before children have their own BlackBerrys.”
Hodgkinson thinks all this overscheduling leads to, as Sierra discussed back in March, the end of play. He recalls a time when his eldest child was “a victim of chronic over-stimulation by his anxious parents,” and “screamed ‘I need some entertainment!’ during a bored moment.” For Hodgkinson, that was a turning point, obviously. The event that led him to create his idle parenting movement and the mantra: “Leave them alone.”
That’s all well and good. But where does idle parenting fit in with the news that authoritative parenting results in healthy, successful offspring? Do any of us really know what we’re doing? Maybe the answer lies in borrowing a bit here and there from opposing parenting styles that compliment each other. Continue reading »
We’ve all heard that children in families who eat meals together are more likely to do well in school, but “only half of American families eat together three to five times a week,” the MinnPost reports.
As it turns out, parenting style may have something to do with that. A University of Minnesota study published in the July issue of the Journal of the American Dietetic Association found that authoritative parents eat with their children four or five time a week. Authoritative parents also have better luck getting children to eat healthy foods, resulting in a lower BMI for their kids.
If the idea of orchestrating that many family meals per week sounds daunting to you, maybe start with a trip to The Olive Garden? They make it look so easy. Not only is everyone family at the OG, but they all smile while eating soup, salad and breadsticks. Family meals at my house consist of my daughter going, “What is this green stuff? I don’t like green stuff! Next time can you make this without any green stuff?” Pause. “What is this red stuff? I don’t like red stuff. Next time can you make this without any red stuff?”
Researchers have some good news and some bad news for parents who are concerned about underage drinking. The bad news is that despite your warnings, your kids are probably going to try alcohol at some point. The good news is that depending upon your parenting style, you may have some sway when it comes to how much they drink. Continue reading »
Every few months something crops up on the Internet linking the way people care for their pets to their would-be parenting skills. Everyone runs with it. We parents fight it. The cycle continues.
So what makes this one different?
Washington Post advice columnist Carolyn Hax isn’t talking about neglectful dog owners who aren’t fit to raise a poodle – never mind a person. Continue reading »
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