Are you a parent wondering if your parenting style impacts your child? Raising a child is a remarkable journey, and you may question if you are doing your best for your child. Building a positive child-parent relationship involves open communication and a supportive environment. Understanding yourself as a parent and recognizing how your parenting style affects your child’s cognitive, biological and socio-emotional development is crucial. Reflecting on your parenting style helps ensure you provide what’s best for your child.
Parenting involves nurturing a child from infancy to adulthood. Parents need to create an ideal environment for their children’s growth, ensuring they develop into independent and responsible individuals. Key aspects of parenting include guiding and supporting the child, fostering a healthy environment, providing love and care, and allowing the child to form their own identity. A crucial element of parenting is the style used to care for the child. Psychologist Diana Baumrind, in the 1960s, identified three primary parenting styles— Authoritarian, Authoritative and Permissive. Here we understand the aspects of Permissive Parenting Style and how it affects your children.
The Permissive parenting style is described by Baumrind as the type with low demands and high responsiveness. Some of its qualities are that the parents are quite lenient, find it hard to make rules for their children and agree with most decisions their children make. As the word ‘Permissive’ suggests, parents who follow this approach tend to stay away from their children’s life and provide them with every want and need. Some of the characteristics that this type of parenting style also portray which you might see in your daily life are
- child-centric behaviour
- high tolerance for misbehaviour
- leniency in forming boundaries
- open communication
The above characteristics encompass the ability of the parents to provide love and affection for their children to an extreme extent where the lines of authority and responsibility are blurred. While it might be extremely crucial to provide emotional support to your child, giving them the first line of dependency on yourself rather than their own regulation can also make it harder for them to deal with their problems in the long run. Some of the best qualities of this type are the open communication, friendship, dependability and closeness between you and your child.
Table of Contents
Effects
Since we now understand the crux of the permissive parenting style, here are some of the effects it has on your children
Impulsiveness
Without you being there to stop any behaviour of your child, they may continue to act the same. It may be as simple as them not doing their homework to stealing something from the shop. This can lead to them having no consequences for their actions increasing their frequency of impulsive behaviour as they get older. Having no discipline can hence lead them to not having to think through before acting or due to fear of a consequence.
Difficulty accepting authority
Children grown with a permissive parenting style can have significant difficulty in accepting authority as they get older. This happens due to their lifestyle being unequipped with rules and regulations or boundaries. This upbringing can lead them to have a lack of respect for rules, making it difficult for them to adapt to the school system and other forms of structure. These children often lack the constructive criticism provided by authoritative figures but rather take them as a threat to their independence. Since they haven’t been taught to accept consequences, staying in the structure and compromises can get difficult for them. For example, a child always being given what they wanted like junk food or chocolates and snacks is being restricted for the first time in the preschool by the teacher. This can be an extremely difficult experience for the child and they might stay relatively resistant to the authority figure which is the teacher.
Low self-esteem
Low self-esteem in children raised by permissive parents often stems from the lack of clear boundaries and consistent guidance. Without rules, children may feel insecure, as they don’t have a strong sense of right or wrong or the confidence that comes from mastering challenges that are present in the outside world. This insecurity can lead to feelings of inadequacy and self-worth, as they are unaware of their abilities and question their place in the world. For example, a child allowed to not take up any chores or responsibilities may end up struggling later on in life when faced with these. While facing these and the difficulties they might encounter, they may doubt their capabilities, feeling they cannot succeed with external validation and support. This self-doubt can also make them more susceptible to criticism, causing them to shy away from challenges and reinforcing their self-worth. Ultimately, the permissive parenting style may deprive children of the confidence-building experiences required to enhance their self-worth.
Modify
Now that we understand the effects of the probable consequences of continuing this parenting style, here are some of the ways you can modify your parenting style to a more practical and effective approach for your children.
Communicate
Since we know that there is open communication established between parents and children of the permissive parenting style, we need to understand the effectiveness of this process. An ideal communication between a parent and a child would be a blend of guided and friendly approaches rather than a friendly approach usually adopted in this style of parenting. Hence, slowly changing your communication style to facilitate the growth of your child rather than focusing on staying “friendly” with them would help them in the long run.
Balance
The optimal balance between warmth and structure needs to be maintained to provide your child with responsibilities and an understanding of the outer world. While we understand that most permissive parents concentrate on providing utmost warmth, love and affection to their children, you also need to know the effects as described above. Love without consequences may end up leading your child to hurt in the future while they form other relationships. Having a balance between structure or rules and warmth or love can help your children learn the effective way of forming any relationship.
Consistency
Providing a set of rules to be followed, helping them realise there are consequences for their actions, and also pushing them to take on responsibility and ownership are a few of the ways you can achieve structure which is lacking in your permissive approach. Being consistent with these principles and also blending them with the warmth and love you provide can make your child feel more secure and develop their sense of self in a more positive environment.
At the end, Permissive Parenting Style has its strengths and weaknesses. It is quite apparent to state that though there is an “ideal” parenting style to achieve, every parent may not be able to achieve it due to their difficulties and differences. While we point this out, we can also strive to achieve what’s best for our children since upbringing is also about certain changes to be made within you. Fostering a healthy communication approach, balance between structure and warmth, and also consistency with rules can provide your children with a healthier upbringing and prepare them for the outside world.
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