Seven Ways To Use Permissive Parenting To Your Advantage
Table of Contents
What is Permissive Parenting?
Permissive parenting or indulgent parenting is referred to the parenting style with the following traits:
- Being a warm and nurturing parent
- Being reluctant when imposing limits
Permissive parenting comes with some expectations and rules. In usual cases, permissive parents are caring and loving for their children. However, they don’t think their children are capable enough to deal with their tasks and responsibilities, which makes them do everything for their kids, spoiling them.
How Does Permissive Parenting Affect Children?
There is a lot of research on permissive parenting, indicating it is problematic for children. Typical problems in permissive parenting include behavioral health issues and poor academic performance. For instance, a study found that children aged four years old are more prone to internalizing their problems when exposed to the style of permissive parenting. On the contrary, children with a more authoritative parenting style displayed lesser signs of internalizing behaviors.
Permissive parenting is also associated with risky behaviors in children as they get older, such as drugs and alcohol abuse when they become adults. What’s more, children exposed to permissive parenting show lesser intimacy with their parents.
What Are the Characteristics of Permissive Parenting?
Although permissive parenting is responsive to the child’s needs, it is not fruitful for their behavioral growth. Permissive parents tend to be loving and warm towards their children. However, they are indulgent with no setting up of boundaries and limitations. They are more of a friend than a parent as they fail to structure their children.
Some of the characteristics of typical permissive parenting include the following:
- Expression of warmth, love, and care towards children
- Provision of support and responsiveness to the needs of children
- Lack of routine and structure
- Lack of rules and their enforcement
- Little provision of guidance for the children as it comes to decision-making
- Failing to limitations and giving in to the requests of children
- Inability to say No
- No response for bad attitude and behavior
- Prioritize getting liked by children and not considering setting boundaries
What Are The Pros And Cons of Permissive Parenting?
While permissive parenting is a style of parenting, it does come with some pros and cons; in this article, we will see the different pros and cons of permissive parenting.
What Does Permissive Parenting Lead to?
A study of college students in America showed that young adults exposed to permissive parenting were likely to dwell in alcohol abuse and related problems to alcohol drinking compared to the people exposed to other types of parenting. Furthermore, scientists have shown how parenting style influences technology in children. Permissive parenting is associated with some problems in the area. Studies indicate that permissive parenting might play a role in gaming addition in young children.
As permissive parents don’t control and monitor their children’s behavior, kids don’t get the skills to have self-control on their impulses and might end up falling into addictive patterns. It might be harmful as the children might be neglecting their other needs such as friends and family.
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Why is Permissive Parenting the Best?
Some people also argue that permissive parenting might be the best style for parenting. They think that children with a permissive parenting exposure often have more self-esteem than those brought up with an authoritarian parenting style or, in contrast, a neglectful parenting style. There may be some advantages coming to the permissive parenting style, but the negative consequences are also there.
What is An Example of Permissive Parenting?
Permissive parents struggle to maintain any rules and orders for their children. They might unconsciously reinforce negative behaviors, including temper tantrums. For instance, if a child wants to have dessert before dinner, the parent would give in as the child pushes back. This kind of response reinforces the child to misbehave to gain something. What’s more, there is a struggle from the permissive parent to communicate expectations for their child as they grow up.
What is An Example of Permissive Parenting for Teens?
Permissive parents of teens might not set any limitations regarding addictive behaviors for their children. They may turn a blind eye as their growing children tend to experiment with such things and might even encourage them to do those things by participating in those activities themselves.
For example, a teen might be allowed to have an alcoholic drink with their friend at home. It might justify the decision as the growing teen might see it as normal and do it repeatedly until they get an alcohol addiction. However, the permissiveness by a parent might lead the teen to get unhealthy habits due to the lack of supervision.
How Do You Avoid Having a Permissive Parenting Style?
It is encouraged that parents develop practices for positive behavior change, which starts with working on self-awareness and mindfulness about the present moment.
It may be challenging to feel like you want to love on your children and be affectionate without upsetting them. However it is normal to upset them if you are being assertive and sticking to your boundaries.
Always check and see if your reaction matches what they did. Are you giving them a fair consequence or are you maybe extra angry or frustrated because of something outside of parenting.
In such moments as the parent chooses between an old and new response, it is better to take a pause and notice the flowing thoughts, feelings, and sensations without any judgment passing.
As you learn from sensing your experience, it would give you a clue regarding the obstacles that come in your parenting style.
As you are already prioritizing your children with the support and connection you give them as a permissive parent, it is equally important to know that too much prioritizing is harmful. You will need to create boundaries that keep you strong and practice self-care so you are not on the verge of a breakdown.
Set the boundaries for yourself and make sure your child respects them.
What parenting style is best?
Experts refer to Authoritative Parenting as being the best form of parenting compared to authoritarian and permissive parenting. This is because it is authoritarian parenting is assertive but is not demanding with phrases such as “because I said so”.
Authoritative parenting is shown to cause children to have a more positive behavior. (Howenstein, 2015)
How Can Therapy Help with Permissive Parenting?
Permissive parents who would want to change their parenting style might see an advantage from getting therapy.
Therapy will help them develop the essential skills needed to become an authoritative parent who is still loving and warm towards their children. They will also learn how to set rules, limits, and expectations.
A therapist specializing in parenting will help the parent resolve issues related to the permissive parenting style such as setting boundaries without being angry or authoritarian.
A parent might want to go with individual therapy style, family therapy, or group therapy. Individual therapy might give you the chance to check how your childhood directs your recent parenting way and the different ways through which you can parent your children more effectively.
Group therapy might give you a way to receive and give advice on such problems and develop essential parenting skills. What’s more, family therapy enables the parent to shift the unhealthy patterns and dynamics of the family.
In family therapy, the professional expert will help the family witness the interactions and address the different negative behavior and communication lying in the current moment.
What is Parent-Child Interaction Therapy?
Also known as PCIT, this therapy is a special parenting therapy that improves the parenting skills of the parent and the overall relationship they are going to have with their child.
Parent-child interaction therapy helps you effectively manage your child’s behavior, setting appropriate disciplining, maintaining healthy boundaries, and supporting the overall confidence of their child. It was initially created for families having children aged two to seven years.
The therapist would first observe the child and the parent’s interaction with the help of a one-way mirror.
Simultaneously, the therapist will coach the parent on the better way to form interaction with their child using an ear device. It will encourage the parents to learn how to respond in a more appropriate way to their child’s behavior. It is a well-studied therapy, and it is rather considered an effective technique.
Bottom Line
There are different consequences of the permissive parenting style. It is a style that is warm. However, it doesn’t have a structure in it. While the children of such parents might feel they are supported and loved, the lack of structure, expectations, and rules may lead to different problems in their behaviors, such as substance abuse and acting out. You may need to seek a therapist to change your parenting style. A specialist in this area will help you grow more as a parent and help you learn the essential skills and techniques to address your child’s behavior more effectively than otherwise.
References:
Howenstein, J., Kumar, A., Casamassimo, P. S., McTigue, D., Coury, D., & Yin, H. (2015). Correlating parenting styles with child behavior and caries. Pediatric dentistry, 37(1), 59–64.
Originally posted 2022-02-12 18:14:15.
Megan Santiago
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