What’s Your Parenting Style?

When it comes to authority, many parents don’t instinctively know how to create a relationship with their child that is effective yet mutually respectful. It’s time to look more closely at ourselves as parents because, while children are certainly players in the vicious cycle of family power struggles, it is the parents who set the cycle in motion. The way out is by identifying, analyzing, and correcting your own parenting patterns. In my work with families, I have identified four distinct parenting styles that most often lead to an imbalance of family power (IFP). I call them Pleasers, Pushovers, Forcers, and Outliers. I’ll describe them briefly below and you can learn about them in more depth in the book. If you recognize yourself in one of these descriptions, don’t panic: there is a key at the core of these troubles, and once you get at the root, the troubles melt away. I will help you get there.

Pleaser

Pleasers are first and foremost dedicated to doing all they can to ensure their children are happy, feel loved, are nice, and become high achievers. The children are the centerpieces of their life to such an extent that almost all decisions and details of daily life and socializing are planned around them. Pleaser parents are involved with and deeply committed to the well-being of their children, but they go too far. They overparent. They overattend to feelings, overexplain their requests, overnegotiate, and overrespond - except when it comes to enforcing directives and holding their children accountable. They apologize too often and with too much deference for having to enforce a limit or cause their child disappointment, saying things like, “Honey, I am so sorry but Mommy has errands to do, so she can’t stay at the park any longer, okay?” The Pleaser is generous, considerate, and fully invested in a close and loving relationship with her child. So what could be wrong? With all of these adoring and well-intended efforts, it seems unfair and, in fact, can be hard to understand and accept that this parenting style can go so wrong. But it does. The problem lies in the inflated sense of entitlement and power that children develop when they are given such exalted status.

PUShover

Pushovers are the cousins of Pleasers. Steeped in feeling-centered, democratic parenting philosophies, they also overattend and overaccommodate their children. They go beyond pleasing, however, to what can really be described as giving complete deference to their child’s wants and demands. It is their anxiety and tentativeness about what they should do as parents that puts Pushovers in a category of their own. This anxiety inevitably leads them to assume subordinate positions in their intimate relationships. My experience is that many Pushover parents have, in fact, experience losses or significant trauma in their own parent-child relationships or have had difficulty reaching parenthood. Pushover parents are akin to Pleasers in their solicitous communication style, but there are a few hallmarks that distinguish them. They warn of what will happen if their child doesn’t behave: “I am going to tell your father, and he will be very angry,” or “Santa won’t bring you any toys” or “Grandma doesn’t like a fresh mouth and she won’t take you to the movies.” They try to add weight to their parental directives by invoking authorities the child does respect: “You know the doctor said you have to eat your vegetables to be healthy,” and “your teacher said all children in the second grade should go to bed by 8:30.” In the absence of reliable, competently enforced boundaries, limits, and parental expectations, the behavior and moods of their children are typically all over the place.

FORCER

Pleaser and Pushover parenting styles are child-centered and feeling-based ones, in which parents are reluctant to act as authorities. Forcers represent the opposite end of the parenting continuum. Firm in their commitment that parents need to be the boss and children need to obey, they fail to understand the need to harness parental authority in an effective, more gentle and respectful manner. Their focus is on taking responsibility, following routines, compliance, and getting the job done. They have a rigid need for their children to have self-discipline and a strong work ethic, to be neat and organized, and to do everything above average. Of course, there is nothing problematic about parents wanting their children to aspire to high standards and ethics. It is the process by which Forcers go about achieving their goals that is so flawed. Talking directly and frankly to children is a good practice, but Forcers go too far and often sound mean and scary: “You can cry all you want; it isn’t going to make a bit of difference. You screwed up, and now you have to pay the price.” They begin directives with “You had better…” and “look at me when I’m talking to you.” When a parent’s corrective methods are based on force and intimidation, the child becomes part of a vicious cycle of power struggles, beginning with the parent’s bullying tactics and leading to the child being afraid, hurt, shamed, and ultimately feeling angry and resentful.

The three parenting styles describe so far are generally familiar to most people. The fourth style, the Outlier, is more elusive. The central characteristic of this style is one of emotional distance; these parents remain on the outside of their children’s inner experiences. Outliers are active, involved parents in most ways, but they are not emotionally engaged with their children. They parent by attending primarily to the business, scheduling, and structure of family life. Typically good-natured, good-hearted people, they love and care for their children but from an emotional distance. When their children exhibit signs of emotional neediness, Outlier parents commonly minimize the significance of the distress and provide only a cursory response, if any at all. In fact, skirting deep emotional expression and connection with other people tends to characterize all their relationships. Outliers tend to be highly intellectual people, and tend to have Outlier parents of their own. When emotional dynaics are clearly involved in a problem their child is experiencing, the common refrain of the Outlier parent (delivered with a quizzical tone) is “I had no idea” followed by “I just don’t understand.” Rather than developing a truly rich and solid emotional life, the children of Outliers learn to keep their troubles hidden. Due to this hands-off style, their children tend to become unregulated in feeling and action. They can be easily frustrated, have tantrums, and find it difficult to settle down.