Four Parenting Styles
Part 1: Love and Boundaries
by Brandon Jubar
Being a parent has never been easy. But recent studies show that increased pressures outside of the home, combined with the age-old pressures of raising a family, create a level of stress and anxiety beyond anything that parents have dealt with in recent memory. One negative effect of this constant pressure is that parents have a difficult time maintaining a balanced approach to raising children and often find themselves struggling to love their children while setting appropriate boundaries.
What's Your Parenting Style?
Many psychologists agree that there are four general styles of parenting. And though they may be known by different terms, each is associated with a certain mix of loving and setting boundaries.
- The Apathetic Parent: Low Love and Soft Boundaries
- The Dictator Parent: Low Love and Firm Boundaries
- The Push-Over Parent: High Love and Soft Boundaries
- The Balanced Parent: High Love and Firm Boundaries
As Catholic Christians, we are taught that we are called to live our faith through our relationships and in the actions we take. Applying this to the terms we use to categorize the different types of parenting, we find that a focus on relationship corresponds with "love" and a focus on action corresponds with "boundaries". Parents who are more relational will therefore use "love" as their major parenting style and parents who are more action-oriented will set "boundaries" as their major style.
Loving and Setting Boundaries
It's not a question of whether or not a parent uses love and limits but rather the degree to which they use each. It's important to realize that each style has its strengths and weaknesses. It's also helpful to understand that most of us have learned the style modeled by our parents (or other major parental figures).
While Apathetic Parents don't care much at all, the Push-Over Parents uses love as the main style. They end up being very permissive when it comes to their children's desires because they place far more importance on loving their children -- making them feel special and boosting their self-esteem -- than on setting boundaries for them.
The Dictator Parents, on the other hand, puts much more value on discipline and the setting of boundaries. Instead of building children's self-esteem, they strive to provide a well-structured environment and to teach their children respect and self-discipline.
The Goal is What Matters
As Christian parents, we certainly want to do what's best for our children. And we don't intentionally try to raise them wrong. In fact, studies have shown that almost 99% of all parents want to be good parents. And being a good parent is a fine goal indeed!
With that goal in mind, we'll spend the next four articles examining each of the parenting styles. We'll focus on their strengths and weaknesses, and hopefully provide you with a bit of insight into how you can improve your own parenting skills.
Life Applications:
How much value do you place on love, and why?
How much value do you place on boundaries, and why?
What parenting style do you use the most.
Copyright 2005 by Brandon Jubar
All rights reserved.
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