Keep those lines of communication with your kids open- even when it's tough!
@nautilusbehavioral
Lisa here. Parenting styles have been studied for decades. A great deal of focus has been directed to figuring out which style is best for raising healthy, well-adjusted children. However, it can be difficult to figure out how to match your parenting behaviors to a particular style. Let’s start with a brief explanation of parenting styles. The four most studied styles are: Authoritarian: This style is characterized by high expectations for children’s behavior and low responsiveness to children’s input. Discipline is key in this parenting style. Few explanations are given for rules and little to no discussion about the reasons for rules is allowed. Authoritative: This style is characterized by high expectations for children’s behavior and high responsiveness to children’s input. While discipline and rules are important, it is equally important that children understand the reason behind the rules. Children are allowed and even expected to ask questions and give opinions. Independence is encouraged. Permissive: This style is characterized by low expectations for children’s behavior and high responsiveness to children’s input. Parents are involved in their children’s lives, but discipline and rules are not a high priority. Children are encouraged to follow their own path and parents provide little intervention. Uninvolved: This style is characterized by low expectations for children’s behavior and low responsiveness to children’s input. Parents are generally not engaged in their children’s lives beyond providing necessities. Children’s input is largely ignored instead of actively discouraged. Most studies have found that the authoritative style is related to the most beneficial outcomes for children. However, it can be confusing to figure out what that means for your actual parenting. Your preferred parenting style is related to your parenting values and feels like a part of who you are as a parent. Under typical circumstances, your parenting style tends to be fairly consistent over time unless you make a conscious effort to change it. However, your parenting behaviors are influenced by many factors, including your child’s behavior, the immediate situation, and your mood in that moment. As a result, your parenting behaviors are more variable and may not always support your preferred style. For instance, let’s say that it is important to you to be an authoritative parent (high expectation, high responsiveness). However, after you’ve had a frustrating day and your child questions a rule or does not follow an instruction, you find yourself imposing harsh consequences or making comments like, “As long as you live in my house, you’ll live by my rules.” These behaviors are not typically associated with an authoritative parenting style. So, what does this mean? Have you failed at being an authoritative parent? Will your child now become poorly adjusted and fail at life? Absolutely not! Even when you are working your hardest to adopt certain behaviors or parent according to a certain style, you’re going to have moments when you step off the path. This is not a big deal. It is just a signal that there might be some things you want to change so that your parenting is more in line with your parenting values and the parenting style that you wish to adopt. Take a look below at the diagram of the four parenting styles. You can move along the continuum of both responsiveness to your child’s input and expectations for your child’s behavior to align your parenting behavior to a particular style. In the example above, you’ve had a long, frustrating day and you may not have enough energy/resources to fully engage with your child in the way you normally would. In this case, your responsiveness will be lower. However, your expectations of your child’s behavior likely remain high. This is how you end up responding in a way that is out of line with your preferred authoritative style. Again, it is not the end of the world if it happens occasionally. But if you notice that you consistently engage in behaviors that do not support your preferred parenting style, a quick way to adjust is to consider your level of expectations for your child’s behavior as well as your level of responsiveness to their input. If either of those are not in line with the kind of parent you want to be, make decisions about how you want to change your behaviors to bring them in line with your preferred style. In our example, if you value responsiveness and want it to remain high even after you’ve had a bad day, you can tell your child that you need a few minutes to yourself when you get home so that you can decompress and then attend to them. Or you may need to take a few minutes to yourself before entering your home so that you can reset and prepare yourself to engage with your family. Adjusting your expectations for your child’s behavior or your responsiveness to your child’s input will not solve every problem, but this is a good place to start if you need to get your behavior back in line with your preferred parenting style. What is your preferred parenting style? Let us know in the comments.
Still not sure? Start by figuring out what is important to you. If you need help getting clarity on your parenting values, sign up for our newsletter for access to our all-new parenting values assessment, Jump Start Your Parenting!
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Sarah here. We hope you’ve been enjoying our blog! Throughout October, we focused on values in general and more specifically on parenting values. We released our all-new parenting values self-assessment, Jump Start Your Parenting, which is available exclusively to newsletter subscribers. Today, I’ll be focusing on something that goes hand-in-hand with values: goals. Oxford Languages defines goals in part as the following: “the object of a person’s ambition or effort; an aim or desired result.” Based on this definition, it’s clear that goals are highly personal, they are tied to behavior and they focus on outcomes. While values give us a sense of direction and focus on what is important in life, goals give us concrete targets and focus on specific things that we want to achieve. We have talked about how values serve as the compass guiding you on your path. Staying with that metaphor, if values are the compass guiding you on life’s journey, then goals are the stops along your way. They are the specific things you set out to do while you are practicing your values. Here’s an example: if being an organized parent is your value, goals along your way could include setting up a shared family calendar or implementing a family chore chart. The above example highlights a key distinction between values and goals. Unlike values, goals can be accomplished. We can also fail to achieve goals. If you aren’t sure whether something is a goal or a value, consider whether it can be checked off a list. For practice, read the list below and decide which items are goals and which are values:
Ready to check your answers? In order, the items on the list are value, goal, goal, value. Notice how the values are broader qualities and more general activities while the goals are concrete and observable.
Remember that goals are concrete actionable items we can check off a list. Setting goals helps us get things done and when we achieve them, we feel a sense of accomplishment. Goals also give us specific steps to take to live in alignment with our values. This week, take some time to think about the goals you have as a parent. If you have trouble, go back to your values – knowing what is important to you can help you decide which goals to set. Let us know what you come up with in the comments below. Still stuck on figuring out your parenting values? Sign up for our newsletter to get access to our all-new parenting values self-assessment, Jump Start Your Parenting! Welcome back! Lisa here. Last week, we talked about parenting values. I hope you’ve taken a little time to think about what your parenting values are. If you haven’t read last week’s blog, go back and take a look. As a brief recap, parenting values are about who you want to be as a parent. Parenting values guide your parenting decisions and your parenting style, but parenting values and decisions/ style are not the same. When you know what your parenting values are you can make clearer decisions about how you want to parent your children. Many parents spend a lot of time questioning whether they are doing the “right” thing for their children. It can be difficult to sort out all the input you get from others (your coparent(s), your own parents, your friends, other parents in the neighborhood, pop culture, etc.) to know what you really think and feel about your own parenting. Identifying your parenting values allows you to assess your actions and feel assured that you are on the right track. When you are questioning whether you are doing a good job as a parent, your values are a good touchstone to let you know the answer to that question. If you’ve really thought about your parenting values and your behavior is aligned with those values, then you are doing the job that is most important to you as a parent. Likewise, your parenting values can help you get back on track when you make a misstep. If you find yourself saying or doing things that do not feel “right” to you or if you notice unwanted changes in the way you are relating to your children, check in with yourself to make sure that you are behaving in ways that align with your parenting values.
So, how do you figure out what your parenting values are? Answering the question, “How do I want my children to describe me as a parent?” can provide you with insight about your parenting values. Thinking about how you want to relate to your children can also provide insight into your values. For instance, you may value spending lots of time with your children or you may value doing specific activities with them. You may value teaching and modeling behaviors for your children, or you may value letting them figure things out on their own. Remember, your values are not “right” or “wrong.” Instead, they’re based on what is most important to you. Take a little time this week to figure out your own parenting values. Let us know in the comments what parenting values are most important to you. If you need a little help, check out our brand new parenting values self-assessment, Jump Start Your Parenting! It's only available to your newsletter subscribers, so click here to sign up today! |
Welcome!Feel free to peruse our blog and see what Sarah and Lisa had to say about topics related to your needs as a busy parent. We will talk about everything from parenting values, to life hacks, to realistic self-care. Archives
August 2023
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