Last month, we had a guest speaker at my church – Tim Dawes, an author, consultant and TEDx speaker – who offered a powerful approach to conflict based in compassion and respect.
Drop-Shift-Give
When you find yourself in a conflict you can’t see a way out of:
Drop whatever approach is putting you at odds. (Arguing, accusing, making threats, trying to change their mind or change their behavior.)
Shift your focus to the other person’s perspective. What is their experience / how are they feeling?
Give – Acknowledge what they want, validate their experience. You really need to accept and respect that this is their experience. (Note, this is not necessarily saying that they’re “right”, just acknowledging their view.)
This creates a connection between you and the other person. After you do these three steps, it is as if you have set a place at the table for their needs. Then you can bring your needs to the table and can sit down and have a real conversation about how to move forward. You may see new options you didn’t see before, and may be able to quickly negotiate solutions that work for both of you.
If you are feeling wronged or hurt, it can be hard to let go of arguing. If you’re a parent, it’s hard to let go of teaching and correcting. If you have strong opinions, it can be hard to let go of trying to convince someone you’re right and they’re wrong. But arguing, correcting and convincing can prolong an argument.
Examples
My oldest child resisted putting toys away. It was an on-going conflict where I battled him again and again. At one point, I dropped my usual tactics for a moment and asked him to explain things from his perspective. He said that when all the toys were put away, the house looked like a place where no one was allowed to have fun. I acknowledged that this was his truth. Then we sat down and negotiated some compromises we could both live with.
My youngest got into a battle at school today. He was upset at getting tagged out in gaga ball. When someone else tried to get him to calm down by saying “it’s just a game”, that upset him more. Rather than try to convince him that he should relax and that a game is not worth getting upset over, I dropped that approach and shifted to curiosity – asking him to explain his perspective. He shared that games are really important to him, whether that’s gaga ball or video games or a board game, and he doesn’t like that people trivialize them all the time. Spending some time talking about his thoughts on this and validating them “brought him to the table” to where we could have a conversation about how he could have reacted differently today.
I appreciated learning this new tool for approaching conflict and look forward to exploring it more.
Often as parents we find ourselves making things up as we go along – we think about what we want our kids to do right now, then take actions that give us quick results in the moment. Those actions may or may not be in alignment with our long term goals or visions of yourself as a parent – I’m sure we’ve all had moments of thinking “I can’t believe I just said/did that!!”
One step you can take toward becoming the parent you want to be is to define – in writing – what that means. This can begin with a process of brainstorming your goals and values, maybe even writing a vision and a mission statement. Then as you find yourself muddling through your parenting days, you can occasionally take time to reflect – am I on course toward my goals? What could I do to course correct a bit? You don’t have to be perfect every day if you’re remembering to check in from time to time to make sure you’re still pointed in the right general direction.
Brainstorming the Basics
Here are some questions to ask yourself to discover what’s important to you.
What are your family’s strengths? What do you do best?
What are the most important values you want to pass on to your child?
What is the place of education in your family? What value do you place on work?
What are your family’s attitudes toward money?
How do you view religion/spirituality, and what part does that play in your daily life?
How important is it to you to help other people or participate in your community?
How would you like to relate to one another?
When do you feel most connected to one another?
What makes you happy?
What makes you fulfilled –brings you satisfaction, leaves you with a sense of completeness?
Answering those questions may be the insight you need to get started.
Figure out what the endpoint looks like
Another approach is “Begin at the end” – think ahead 15 years. What is your vision for:
What is your child like as a person?
What skills have you nurtured in them: Curiosity? Confidence? Compassion? Determination?
What are your child’s core values? (see above)
If your child is “successful”, what does that look like?
What are the relationships amongst members of your family like?
How would you like your child to describe what it was like to grow up with you as a parent?
Creating a Vision Statement
What is a vision statement?
It describes what your ideal family life would look like and what you want your family to be someday.
It provides inspiration for what you hope to achieve in five, ten, or more years;
It functions as the “north star” – helps you understand how your work every day ultimately contributes towards accomplishing over the long term; and,
An effective vision statement is inspiring, yet short and simple enough that you could repeat it out loud from memory
Some sample visions from organizations are: “To improve the health and well-being of each person we serve.” (a hospital) “To inspire students to create a better world.” (a school) “We believe that strong families begin at home and building strong families creates thriving, healthy communities.” (a family support organization) “To be a vibrant and welcoming community, feeding the human spirit, lighting a. beacon for love and justice.” (a church.)
Write your parenting vision statement. (Try several approaches until you find the one that sings to you.)
Creating a Mission Statement
A Mission statement focuses on a shorter time frame (1 – 3 years). There are lots of possible formats. One format answers three questions
WHAT you will do – what specific actions will you take?
HOW you will do it – what will be the quality of your actions (this is where you can articulate your values for how you want to interact with your family)
WHY – what results or benefits you will see when you look at your kids / your family in a few years?
Here are some sample missions, from the web… I don’t endorse any in particular, they’re just examples.
We are a family who believes that relationships matter most! We value spending time together. We hold each member of our family accountable for responsible behavior. We support each other in our individual pursuits of personal and professional interests. We cheer each other on. We laugh whenever possible. We hold our marital relationship as a top priority because this relationship serves as the foundation of our family.www.everythingmom.com/dynamics/the-family-vision-statement-a-solution-for-challenging-decisions.html
Our home will be a place where are family, friends, and guests find joy, comfort, peace and happiness. We will seek to create a clean and orderly environment that is livable and comfortable. We will exercise wisdom in what we choose to eat, read, see, and do at home. We want to teach our children to love learn, laugh, and to work and develop their unique talents. www.happyfamilyhappylife.com/examples-of-a-family-mission-statement/
Our family mission: To always be kind, respectful, and supportive of each other, To be honest and open with each other, To keep a spiritual feeling in the home, To love each other unconditionally, To be responsible to live a happy, healthy, and fulfilling life, To make this house a place we want to come home to. [also from happy family… cited above]
I choose to raise children who are respectful and believe they are worthy of respect. I choose to raise children who are confident and who know themselves enough to be true to the song in their hearts.I choose to raise children who are kind and caring and see kindness and caring in the world as well.I choose to raise children who are honest and value the power of truth. [in the post, the author gives concrete examples of how their parenting will reflect this mission http://lusaorganics.typepad.com/clean/2011/12/a-peaceful-parenting-mission-statement.html]
Implementing Your Vision & Mission
Write your Vision & Mission down, and post it where you can see it.
Review it on a regular basis and see how you’re doing.
Narrowing the Vision – Action Gap: when the theory of what kind of parent we wish we were meets the reality of how we respond to our child when we’re tired and they’re challenging, it can be easy to get discouraged. Be gentle with yourself – don’t beat yourself up for your mistakes, just use it to help you remember your goals. Ask yourself what you could do differently the next day to move in that direction.
Revise your mission as needed to in order to reflect new values, hopes, and dreams.
More Resources:
On this blog:
Here is a free printable worksheet for developing a mission/vision statement.
Read about Parenting Style: Authoritarian, Permissive, Balanced and Uninvolved are ways to describe the intersection between how high the demands are that you place on your child, and how responsive your rules are to their individual needs and goals. Are you your child’s Boss? their Friend? A Friendly Boss?
Think about what rituals you will incorporate – how will you celebrate holidays? What about the tooth fairy? Bedtime routines? It’s often the little things that define our families.
The identity of a family is wrapped up in its traditions: the daily routines and the annual rituals. As a parent educator, I talk a lot about the power of routines – the ways we move through each day that help us feel like the world is safe and predictable and manageable even in the midst of chaos and change. Rituals are also important – whether it’s how we do the tooth fairy in our family, what we do on the Fourth of July, or how we spend our winter holidays. Rituals honor our cultural heritage. They show our children what we value by what we pay attention to. They make our children feel special and loved. They help to define who we are as a family.
2020 has messed with all our routines, and with all our rituals. We may have found new daily routines that are working for us. But rituals… so many of which revolve around gathering in-person with the people we love and gathering with our communities… may seem out of reach. It’s natural to have a lot of grief over all the things we can’t have this year. (Here are tips for managing the grief.) But we can also work to figure out ways to adapt our traditions to this year’s limitations. We can create new rituals. And we can use this as a year to focus on resilience.
Resilience is often thought of as the ability to bounce back from challenges. Another way to view it is ““being able to continue functioning relatively normally” in adversity.
There are lots of ways we can build resilience in children, but one important one is to tell our children stories of the family’s history that are not just about the family’s successes, but about the ups AND the downs… “we had plenty of hard times, but we made it through together.” It creates a story for the child that “our people” are resilient. (Learn about Marshall Duke’s research on family stories and resilience.) This year is a great year to find a way to incorporate these narratives into your holiday celebrations. I’ll share something I’ve done here, and encourage you to reflect on how you might celebrate resilience through the holidays this year.
Honoring Your Family’s History
At my church, one Sunday in every December, we ask members to share a photo of their family’s holiday traditions, and we gather them into a slide show. Watching those slideshows always brings smiles, and warm cozy feelings. But this year, when I went to find a photo from a previous holiday, it made me very sad. At first, seeing all those photos of large family gatherings just made me grieve all the things that I couldn’t have this year.
Then going into Thanksgiving, I realized that I needed to reclaim those memories, and re-define their meaning for this year. For our family’s Thanksgiving over Zoom, I went through 30 years of photos, and for each year, I found one photo of a family meal or holiday gathering. The first slide read: “Our Family, Gathering Together for the Holidays… The location changes, the guest list changes, loved ones pass away, and new loved ones join us, and through it all, the family goes on.”
We watched it together on Zoom, talking and sharing memories. We talked about the loved ones in the photos that have passed away and shared stories about them. We puzzled over a stranger in one of the photos… who was it? Maybe the nephew’s “holidate” for that year?? We remembered the year my partner and I were divorced, before we got back together again. (We’ve now been back together for 20 years!) We smiled as the babies appeared – including a baby who is now 27 and all those who came after him. We welcomed the new family-in-law members who have joined us over the years. I included a picture from this year, with three of us at one table, and the laptop showing everyone else on Skype. The pandemic reality seems all-encompassing now but it’s helpful to think that someday, 2020 will be just one picture of many, and we’ll chuckle as we remember “the year we all stayed home.” In our holiday pictures, we clearly saw that although the family changes and evolves every year, the love and connection stays constant.
If you look only at this year, it seems so disconnected from all that came before. But it’s not. It’s just the current chapter in a long history of a family. A history that includes good times and bad, that has been through challenges before and still is strong. Taking time to acknowledge that was helpful. It led me to think more broadly of the stories we could tell with this year’s celebrations.
Honoring Your Family’s Traditions in a New Way
Remembering What Connects Us
A Jewish friend of mine said: “Maybe to bridge the separation we are all feeling this year, think as you light candles over Chanukah of the connection you have to Jews all over the planet who are lighting candles with you. There is synergy this year as remembering a holiday that celebrates our perseverance and faith that things will get better.” Your faith traditions can help to link you to the history of your people, and also to others around the world who are walking through this challenging year with you.
Every year, my church ends our Christmas Eve service by holding candles as we sing Silent Night, and passing a flame from candle to candle till all are lit. This year, on Zoom, we’ll share a slide show of all of us holding candles, and we’ll all light our own candles at home as we sing along. Our community still unites even as we are separate.
Gather Around the Virtual Table
Many families have long been gathering on Zoom (or Skype or Messenger or Teams…) for family dinners and celebrations. (If you don’t know how to use Zoom, I have a full guide to Zoom which can take you from beginning to expert.) My own family’s tradition of a family dinner every Sunday for those of us who live in Washington has now evolved into weekly dinner calls including family in Nebraska, New Jersey, Wyoming, and England. This Thanksgiving was the first year EVER where my husband and I saw ALL of our siblings and ALL of our parents on Thanksgiving. Zoom gatherings are not the same as in-person, but they have their own blessings. (If you need ideas for fun interactive things to do on a telechat, check out this post.)
At a holiday gathering on Zoom consider doing a Year in Review. Share the highs and lows of your year, and celebrate the roses you’ve found amongst the thorns of 2020. That celebrates our strength, resilience, and adaptability.
Deck the Halls… or the Yard
Some people are saying “why bother decorating – no one else will see the decorations.” If you always find decorating exhausting, then 2020 is a great excuse to skip it. But if any part of decorating gives you joy, go for it! Do whatever small portion of it has meaning, or go way over the top beyond what you’ve done before. Take pictures and share them on social media! Or decorate the OUTSIDE of your house so neighbors get to enjoy. That outdoor décor can also be helpful if your family gatherings will be outside in the back yard this year.
As a preschool teacher whose classes haven’t met in person in months, I have an overabundance of bubble solution in my life… and I have a bubble machine! So on Christmas Eve, we plan to send bubbles streaming from our deck to anyone passing by. It’s just a small way to connect with a community of neighbors that we value.
How Can We Keep From Singing
Music is important to our family… particularly singing. It’s something we do together as a family. If you miss singing out loud:
can you just crank up the tunes out home and sing along?
can you sing “with others” online? On a Zoom call, one person sings aloud (learn how to make music work on Zoom) and everyone else is on mute, but sings along at home and can see the others singing- it’s more joyful than you might think!
could you go for a Christmas Caroling walk through your neighborhood, belting out the tunes? (Just be sure not to sing when anyone else is within 25 feet or so, because singing does carry a higher risk of transmitting any virus we might have.)
Enjoying singing is claiming your right to find JOY even in these challenging times.
The Nutcracker or A Christmas Carol?
Theater is a big part of our family culture. If your typical holiday season includes viewing live performances and the arts are important to your family, try a “dinner and a show” night at home. Get dressed up, pick up a fancy meal takeout, sit at the table and eat a celebratory meal. Then go sit in your living room with the lights off as if you were in a theater, and watch many of the holiday shows that are available for streaming online via your local arts organizations, Broadway on Demand and Broadway HD. (We did this last night and our son pretended to be our “usher” – he escorted us to our seats, asked if we needed anything to be comfortable and reminded us to silence our cell phones before the show started. We clapped at the end of each number.) After the show, remember to donate to an arts organization that has fed your family’s soul in the past.
Giving To Others
Many experts recommend thinking about gratitude and celebrating all the things your family DOES have this year, and then consider spreading your “wealth” – whatever form that takes – to others. Donating money, or time, or sharing beauty through art, or sharing kindness with others, or donating to food banks and gift drives could all be ways to acknowledge that your family has enough blessings to share.
Letting Go of What Doesn’t Bring Joy
This article from Mental Health America has a good point: “Don’t Romanticize Your Typical Holiday Plans. Remember that while your holiday season may normally be full of excitement and joy, it can also be a time of high stress. Long days of travel, endless to-do lists, and dinners with that one family member you don’t get along with are all part of the holidays too…” This year may be a great chance to free yourself from the stale habits and burdensome obligations, and re-focus on what your true priorities are and what things would actually make your holidays happy.
Talking with Children about New Traditions
If you’re parenting young children this year you may feel like you have to put on a smiling face all the time. I think it’s fair to share with our children when we’re feeling sad – “This year, I miss the fact that we can’t do _____ like we usually do.” For older children, honor that this may make them sad too. (Young children may have no memory of what you “normally” do.) And then we can say (to ourselves and to them) – “But I know our family has many many years we’ll be able to do that exact tradition. The part of that tradition that is important is that it honors ______ because that is something that is important to our family. Here’s how we’re going to honor that this year.”
If you have older children, involve them in planning. Time has helpful tips on adapting holiday traditions for COVID, as does AARP.
I would love to hear ideas for how you are adapting your holiday traditions for your family and how this could tell a story of how “our family is resilient and comes through hard times even stronger than before.” Click on “Leave a Reply” at the top of this post to share your ideas.
“Next year all our troubles will be out of sight… Faithful friends who are dear to us will be near to us once more. Someday soon we all will be together, if the fates allow. Until then we’ll have to muddle through somehow…”
As we admit that we’re muddling through this year, we can also embrace that we are learning how to be resilient, how to adapt, and how to find the light in the darkness.
Prior to 2020, I don’t think the developers at Zoom (or Skype or Microsoft Teams) ever predicted that their teleconferencing and video chat software would become a platform for parent-toddler classes and online preschool!
Then during coronavirus, all the parents who used to try to minimize screen time for their young children found they needed to utilize it as their child’s primary way to connect to people outside their household. Even as we’ve moved past pandemic, it’s likely that online classes and conversations will continue to be a part of young children’s lives moving forward. (For example, Outschool offers thousands of online classes for children age 3 and up – here’s a review of Outschool.)
How do we make the experience as rich and as developmentally appropriate as we can?
These tips can be helpful whether you’re a parent planning a call between your child and their grandparent, or you’re a preschool teacher planning a class for 20 kids.
Before the Call
Choose a good time of day when the child is relaxed and attentive.
It doesn’t have to be a long call and a big deal – it’s fine to do short calls. A few minutes here and there is great for some kids. On the other hand, it’s also fine to have long calls. I know one family in Seattle where the grandmother in China “comes for breakfast” every day (before grandma turns in for the night.) She “sits at the table” with them, and chats with the children as the parents get ready for the day.
Before the call, gather anything you’ll want to use during the call: books, instruments, and show & tell items so that no one has to step away from the computer during the call – that might cause the child to lose interest.
Prepare the child. Talk about what will happen and how long the visit will be. Remind them who they will be speaking to and what they talked about last time.
Consider stayingnearby. Young children may be best able to engage with a zoom call if they’re sitting on their parent’s lap or the parent is sitting beside them. (Note, some organizations, like Outschool, require that adults be off camera, but when I teach preschool age children online, I find that the children who do best in class often have an adult right next to them – I’ll see the parent’s arm reach in to help out. Once children have done several classes, they no longer need that active support, and you may be able to step away and get things done while they’re on a call.)
Teach them to un-mute. The host can mute the child, but not all systems allow the host to un-mute, so be sure the child knows how to un-mute. There are a few choices: if you have a touch screen, the easiest may be to teach them to tap the bottom corner of the screen to bring up the command bar, then tap on the mic icon. Other options: moving the mouse cursor to the bottom of the screen and clicking on the microphone (this can be hard for little ones), pressing alt-a, or holding down the space bar (note: as soon as they let go of the space bar they return to muted.)
Over time, help your child learn Zoom skills to be more independent in the call: how to mute, how to chat, how to use the reactions like clapping, how to share screen. How to place a call. Help them understand what’s happening when their screen buddy “freezes.”
During the Call
Have familiar rituals – perhaps the same greeting each time, or the same song each time – these cues help a young child to remember who they’re speaking to and reconnect.
The remote person should speak slowly and clearly. The person in the room with the child can repeat questions and comments from either side, as needed.
The remote person should look directly at the camera – this will feel like eye contact to the child. Don’t be tempted to look away at other distractions while talking. Use a lot of gestures, body language, and big facial expressions – it’s much more engaging.
Stay unmuted as much as possible so everyone in the call can hear each other and feel as though they’re in the same room.
Consider using a mobile device like a tablet or laptop so you can move around and show each other new things.
Some children focus better if eating a snack while talking – for others, that is distracting. Some children focus better if they have some simple toys nearby to hold in their hands and play with during the call. Others may find that distracting.
Let the child know when the call is nearing its end, and make a clear ending. (Maybe a song, or a story, or something to signal the ending.) Talk about when you’ll “meet” again.
Making Video Chats Interactive
Here are ideas for interactive activities to try out:
Play Peek a Boo. Normal style, or by covering the camera and uncovering it.
ReadStories. If you have a physical copy of a book, you can hold it up and read it. Or you can scan in pictures of the pages and share those as you read. Or find a YouTube of a read aloud book, but mute their video, and read along with your voice.
Sing Songs. With audio lag you can’t sing in unison or it sounds awful. But you CAN take turns singing.
Silly Faces. Take turns – who can make the silliest face? (Spotlight them.)
Pretend to Be – Take turns pretending to be different animals, or whatever.
What is My Stick? Hold up a stick. Demonstrate how it could be a fishing pole, or a baseball bat. Try a few more and ask them to guess what it is.
Use Props. Puppet shows can be fun!
Make Art Together. Get out art supplies on each end, and draw pictures together. Hold them up to the camera from time to time to share your work.
Show and Tell – each person brings an item to show to people and to talk about.
Play Guessing Games.
Share a travelogue – each person takes pictures of their day, and shares it with the other on the next call.
Talent Show – Take turns demonstrating special talents you have: telling jokes, crazy dances, singing songs, patting your head and rubbing your belly…
Progressive Stories. One person starts a story: “Once upon a time, a polka-dotted elephant…” then the next person continues “… boarded a spaceship headed for… “
Would you Rather? “would you rather ______ or _______”
I Spy: Do a google search for “I spy pictures.” Choose one, then share your screen and play I Spy together.
Play Simon Says.
Play Tic Tac Toe, Hangman, and other pencil and paper games on the Zoom whiteboard.
Guess How Many. Person A fills a container with objects (20 pennies? 30 mini marshmallows?) and shows it to Person B. They have to guess how many objects there are, then they count them together. On the next call it’s B’s turn.
Scavenger Hunt. Name an object – they run and find it in the house and bring it back.
Find the Hidden Object. The remote adult can conspire with the in-house adult. The in-house adult hides an object before the call. During the call, the remote adult can give clues to help the child find the treasure.
Pretend to Share Snacks. Plan ahead and have both of you have the same food to eat together. Make it a fancy tea party if you’d like.
Go on a walk “together” with mobile devices. Share what you see.
Go on a field trip “together.” Lots of zoos, aquariums, and museums have created virtual field trips or have “panda-cams” and such. Go on one together by sharing your screen and talking about what you see. You could also do virtual tourism together. My mother-in-law has found a whole world of “virtual walking tours” on YouTube and goes for walks all over the world every day in her living room.
Watch movies together. Share a screen and talk as you watch.
I also like this suggestion from Zero to Three: “Be the “hands and heart” of the the person on-screen. When the screen partner “tickles” your baby’s tummy, give your child’s tummy a tickle, too. When a grandparent leans toward the screen to “kiss” your toddler, you can give him a kiss on the cheek. By taking this role, you help nurture the relationship between the child and their on-screen friend.”
Long Distance Babysitters
During the coronavirus stay-at-home time, many parents were with their children 24/7 for a long time with few breaks. You can use a video chat as a “babysitter” to get you a break. Have your child talk with grandpa, or an aunt, or a friend while you rest. If you have a very young child, you may need to be in the same room but at least the child’s attention is captured by someone else. For older children, you may be able to be elsewhere in the house, and let your child know where to find you. I know some parents of elementary age kids who will go for a walk in the neighborhood while their child is online – the remote adult has their cell phone number and can reach them immediately if needed.
Internet Safety
This blog is primarily aimed at parents of kids age 1 to 6, so I assume the parents are nearby during video calls, and keeping their eyes and ears on what is happening. If you have an older child who may be making video calls independently to friends, here are some helpful safety tips.
Audio Quality
If the person on the other end seems to have a hard time hearing you: Figure out whether you need to add an external microphone to make your child audible (especially if they’re speaking with an older person whose hearing isn’t what it used to be). Children tend to have quiet voices and may be hard to hear over a video chat if the internal mic on your device isn’t great. Plus they wiggle around a lot and don’t always stay near the mic. You can test your mic – use the “voice recorder” app on your computer and record your child talking, then play it back. If you can hear it with your speaker volume at any setting, it’s fine. But if you can only hear the recording if you crank your speakers up to 80 or 90 out of 100, then consider buying a mic. (Click for more tips about audio settings.)
Resources
If you’re teaching classes to young children, here’s a handout you can send to the parents about help your child succeed on Zoom.
Here are some of the sources I used when writing this.
TL/DR summary: Giving a child choices (e.g. what to wear, what story to read) can help to build a positive relationship where the child feels valued, empowered, and learns decision-making skills while having fewer power struggles. But if we offer too many choices, the child may feel overwhelmed and the parent may feel out of control. Finding the right balance starts with the parent deciding which options are available (setting limits), then the child choosing between those workable options.
My post on Offering Choices to Children covers the nitty gritty of how to use this discipline tool. This post is more of a philosophical think piece about the long-term impact of how we handle choices in our families. (Note: in this post, I talk a lot about parenting styles. Learn more about the Four Parenting Styles.)
Three Approaches to Offering Choices
Several times each day in the life of a parent and a child, there are decisions to be made: what to eat at a meal, what to wear, what to do, which story to read, and on and on. Some parents, who learn toward the authoritarian style of parenting make almost all the choices, telling their child what the required plan is. Some parents who lean toward the permissive style let their children make all the choices. Let’s look at the possible pitfalls of taking either of these approaches to an extreme, then let’s look a more balanced (authoritative) approach.
Giving Orders – The Parent Makes All the Choices
There may be lots of reasons some parents want to make all the decisions. Sometimes it’s just that a parent wants to be in full control (“it’s my way or the highway”), sometimes it just feels faster and easier to make all the decisions rather than waiting on your kid to decide, sometimes it is an parent who has very high expectations for the child and believes they know the best route to achieving those. This has been called Tiger Mom parenting style, named after Amy Chua’s book, in which she describes her choices such as requiring that her children play piano and violin and requiring them to practice, saying “To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences… Once a child starts to excel at something… he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun.”
This parenting style can work well for some parents and for some kids.
But, it can also backfire in a few ways.
Some children rebel against this – in the short term, that means lots of power struggles, and in the long-term it can damage the relationship with the parent.
Some children feel dis-empowered and discouraged, or some feel that their parent doesn’t care about them.
Children raised this way may not learn independent decision-making and initiative.
If you lean toward the more authoritarian style of parenting, it’s import to be aware of these potential pitfalls to help you to avoid them.
Giving In – Parents Let the Kids Make All the Decisions
This style of parenting could also be called permissive or laissez-faire. Dayna Martin, proponent of Radical Unschooling, says ““[This] includes trusting your child in what they choose to learn; you extend that same trust to other areas of your child’s life, like foods, media, television, bedtime. Parenting is supposed to be joyful, and it can be when we learn to connect with, rather than control, our children. The focus of our life is on happiness and pursuing our interests with reckless abandon together.”
Again, this can work well for some parent and for some kids. But, it can backfire.
Sometimes children make bad choices, especially if they are given free rein and not much guidance. Like wearing a swimming suit in the winter or eating so much chocolate they get sick. Then parents have to decide whether to let the child live with the consequences of that bad choice – “guess you’ll be cold” – which can be fair or can be cruel depending on how far you take that, or whether to rescue the child from the consequences to keep them happy – which may mean they never learn from their mistakes.
I have seen children who don’t do well in school or in peer relationships when they’ve been raised in a very permissive environment and don’t understand limits. The child who takes toys away from others any time she wants them and who eats all the cupcakes on the table will soon alienate their friends.
Having to make choices all the time can actually be exhausting and overwhelming for kids. Being asked to make too many choices all the time can lead to meltdowns for little ones. Having choices within limitations can be very calming. Imagine being thirsty and walking into a convenience store in a foreign country where you don’t recognize any of the packaging, and you can’t figure out which of forty options to choose. Wouldn’t it be so much easier and more pleasant if someone said “I know you like juice – here’s the grape juice, the apple juice, and an apple cranberry juice – which one would you prefer?”
Another common backfire for permissive parenting is that the parents may start feeling like they’re out of control. Some parents just end up feeling frazzled all the time, feeling powerless, and not able to see any way to change how things are going with their kids. Other parents, when they start feeling out of control will hit a certain high stress point, then suddenly flip-flop from permissive to strict – going from “you can do whatever you want” to “I’m done, you’re grounded for a month.” This inconsistency is extremely stressful for kids, and can lead to a lot more anxiety in the future over making their own decisions.
Giving Choices – The Balanced Approach
I believe that for most families the optimal approach is the authoritative parenting style. The parent has high expectations for the child and wants them to be successful, so they set clear limits and ensure the child is choosing between options that can be healthy for them (e.g. good nutrition, clothing appropriate to the weather, doing their homework, practicing their chosen sport or instrument). But the parent is also highly responsive to the individual child – ensuring that there are options that the child will enjoy and giving some flexibility for the circumstances of the moment.
Ellyn Satter, author of Child of Mine and How to Get Your Kid to Eat: But Not Too Muchhas some important ideas about the division of responsibility in feeding. The parent is responsible for what, when, and where the child eats. The child is responsible for whether to eat, and how much. The parent puts healthy options on the table, the child makes the decision from there, and the parent can relax, knowing that any choices the child makes can work out OK.
I think a similar approach could apply to almost all decisions, from getting dressed, to choosing a bedtime story, to choosing extracurricular activities to choosing where to go to college and what to major in. The parent first evaluates the possible range of options, and decides what criteria would represent a good option. If they’re working with a young child, the parent might and offer only a limited number of viable options (2 options for a 2 year old, 3 for a 3 year old… “do you want the blue shirt or the red one?”) For an older child, they might say “you can choose amongst any of these options, but here’s our limitations and here’s our criteria. You can only choose things that fit those requirements.” (“It’s cold out today, so choose something warm to wear.”) The parents are the ones “setting the table” with options. The child then is empowered to make the choices within those limits.
I have always told my children “you may be as smart or smarter than I am, but I am wiser than you and will always be wiser than you because wisdom comes from life experience and seeing all the long-term impacts of choices.” So, when I tell them the criteria for a positive choice, that’s coming from all my wisdom. When I let them make the choice, I acknowledge their intelligence and give them decision-making practice for their future.
It’s worth acknowledging that authoritative parenting requires more effort from the parent than authoritarian or permissive parenting does. The authoritarian parent just has to say: here’s the rule – follow it or expect consequences. The permissive parent says: do what you want. The authoritative parent has to say: Here are the options, here’s information on the impact of your choices, let’s talk through how to make the best choice. It’s more work in the short term, but hopefully in the long term yields a child who is capable of making better decisions on their own.
by Davis and Keyser. Simply the best book on this topic.
, in which she describes her choices such as requiring that her children play piano and violin and requiring them to practice, saying “To get good at anything you have to work, and children on their own never want to work, which is why it is crucial to override their preferences… Once a child starts to excel at something… he or she gets praise, admiration and satisfaction. This builds confidence and makes the once not-fun activity fun.”
has some important ideas about the 
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