Finding the balance between permissive and authoritarian parenting styles can be challenging.  Often times, when left unchecked, they can create behavioral issues with your children and put a strain on marriages.  This typically happens when one parent is perceived as fun loving and easy going, while the other is perceived as the harsh disciplinarian.

Generally speaking, your parenting style tends to be the opposite of how you were raised.  See if one of these descriptions fits you and your spouse:

The Permissive Parent – This Mom or Dad, by nature, approaches parenting in a more laid back, easy-going manner.  They don’t necessarily think the child’s behavior is all that bad.  They might even think the misbehavior is funny or cute.

The permissive parent almost always says yes. They want to keep the peace, and avoid conflict, rather than deal with the child if they say no.  As a result, they let the rules, behaviors and attitudes slide, while the misbehaving child goes uncorrected.  This parent was often times raised in a more prohibitive home environment with strict rules.

The Authoritarian Parent – This Mom or Dad, by nature, approaches parenting with structure and rules.  They become easily frustrated and angry when the child’s behavior isn’t in keeping within the set boundaries.  They might over correct/punish the misbehaving child.

The authoritarian parent tends to be legalistic toward rules and instructions.   As a result, they may focus on a child’s lack of obedience rather than encouraging the right behavior.  Ironically, this parent may have been raised with very little structure and had freedoms that may not have been appropriate for their age.

We offer these descriptions to demonstrate the need for awareness and balance.  When parents fail to address their parenting approaches and relational dynamics, it can lead to undesirable choices and outcomes for the child:

  • The child may develop contempt for any parental authority and instructions; does what ever they want with no regard for what mom or dad says.  They might also misbehave around other adults (i.e. Teachers) and disregard their instructions.  Often these kids are left in an anxious state of doing whatever feels good at the moment, while feeling insecure in those choices.
  • The child might continue to push the boundaries set by the parents; negotiating with you or pitting parents against one another.  These kids are always in “testing you” mode.  They are trying to see how much they can get away with and resetting their own limits.

As we mentioned in our Overcompensating letter, we struggled with this when our boys were young.  Rich was authoritarian and Shelly was permissive.  Consciously and subconsciously we were fighting against each others parenting style.  Rich might have made unreasonable demands of the boys while Shelly was offering amnesties to those demands.  In those moments, Shelly was the “good guy” and Rich was the “bad guy”.  This was definitely not what we wanted for our marriage relationship nor was it an effective and positive environment for our boys.

Thankfully, we were able to identify our parenting styles and, over a brief period of time, correct our relational dynamic.  We spent several CouchTimes talking about finding the appropriate balance in both our styles; focusing on the positive sides of permissive and authoritarian parenting.  We also discussed how we could better support, honor and love each other by preventing the “Good Guy/Bad Guy” roles from emerging.

It did not take long for our boys to notice that we had made a significant change in our parenting.  They clearly saw that we were unified and balanced in our approach to parenting them.  Our instruction and discipline was characterized by being more consistent and reasonable.

Do your kids show contempt for your instructions?  Are they constantly “pushing your buttons” and testing the limits?  Perhaps you need to examine your parenting styles and the relational dynamic between you and your spouse.  You just might discover the root cause, and answers, to those seemingly uncorrectable behaviors!

Blessings to Your Family,

Shelly and Rich