What is Your Parenting Style?
Behind the feeding, bathing, reading, clothing, yelling and general hubbub of parenting, we each use of a parenting style that underpins the way we interact with our kids. It's not always the style that we want, though.
Do you know what your parenting style is? Not your best moment parenting style, but the one that you use everyday, in every interaction and especially when you are pissed off?
This picture gallery may give you a hint of what your style is. Barbara Coloroso's explanation of parenting styles is my favourite way to frame it:
Brick Wall: Brick Wall parents are authoritarian, they expect strict adherence to their rules and total obedience. They want to be feared.
Jellyfish: Jellyfish parents have trouble setting limits and consequences. When pushed, they often snap and apply non-related consequences. They want to be friends. (There is a subset of Jellyfish parents who are so wrapped up in their own problems and/or mental health issues that they cannot parent and allow their kids to run free).
Backbone: Backbone parents live by six messages: I believe in you, I trust you, I know you can handle life situations, you are listened to, you are cared for and you are very important to me. They model respect and good decision making and set up limits with related consequences. They want to their children to experience respect and good decision-making.
Obviously, we all want to be backbone parents. But none of us are all the time. How we parent under stress is often directly related to the kind of parenting we experienced as a child. Sometimes, people will choose to parent the opposite way to how they grew up; others will continue the pattern.
I like to think I'm a Backbone parent with a side of Jellyfish, but it may be the other way around and that is not something I'm very proud of. I wish I could and give more backbone. How about you? What is your parenting style?
Want more chaos? Last year I told some of my best when playdates go bad stories. Add one in!
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