Your mission, if you choose to accept, is to underline the following characteristics you identify in Depicting Permissive Parenting Style.
Δ High Responsiveness: warm, loving, non-controlling, accepting, relaxed, indulgent, affirmative, involved, but not in a traditional way. In carrying out their responsibility for their children, these parents are more likely to treat their children as friends rather than acting as authority figures with their children who need discipline. They communicate openly, are highly involved in their children’s lives, going to great lengths to fulfill their children’s desires whenever possible, sometimes at their own expense.
Δ Low Demandingness: offer limited, inconsistent guidance or direction, have a hard time setting limits with the children, usually with minimal expectations, structure or rules either not set or rarely enforced giving in against their better judgment when their children get upset so as not to disappoint or upset the children, non-punitive. These low levels of expectation seldom result in using discipline. The children are allowed to exercise full autonomy, being left to explore the world all by themselves and decide for themselves. Not wanting to say “No” or disappoint their children, they support their children almost blindly, allowing them to push boundaries and “get away with” poor behavior. Children can avoid punishment by begging because permissive parents are lenient and forgiving. This can be the result of the parents having grown up with an Authoritarian parenting style in their own household and not wanting to put their children through it.
The parents are often liberal, middle-class professionals, thus are rewarded for taking initiative, being self-directed, and assertive in their jobs. These parents encourage their children to have those qualities as well by rewarding independence and self-reliance.
If you want to raise a scientist, let your child ask offbeat questions, get dirty, and take things apart.[i]
Permissive parents don’t present themselves as authority figures or role models. They might use reason or manipulation to get what they want. But they avoid exercising overt power.
These parents might worry that their child’s spirit will be crushed or she’ll stop loving or trusting them if there is a conflict of will. They coax or distract their child into the behavior they want (or out of the behavior they don’t want) rather than risk being the mean guy who says “no”.
Basically, most parents are afraid of disciplining their children because they are afraid of the power struggle. They are afraid of overpowering the child, afraid they will destroy the child’s free will and personality… –Magda Gerber
Others add to the fear list with suggestions that permissive parents fear they may lose their own freedom or peace of mind.[ii]
Rewards vs Bribes
Rewards are a positive consequence for your child’s behavior that has already occurred…. Bribes, however, are persuasion-based offers of something in advance of the moment to stop your child’s current negative behaviors. Rewards are meant to encourage motivation and reinforce positive behavior. Bribes, on the other hand, can undermine a child’s intrinsic motivation and lead to entitlement or manipulative behavior.[iii]
Distilling Permissive Parenting
Yeah but, – No but
…[O]n the positive side, children with permissive parents are better off than kids whose parents are uninvolved. In addition, kids raised by permissive caregivers tend to have high self-esteem, and they may be more resourceful than kids raised by uninvolved or authoritarian parents.
But, on the negative side, there is also a lot of research supporting the claim that “indulged” kids tend to be less self-disciplined and less responsible than are children with authoritative parents.
But there are exceptions.
Several studies, conducted in Spain and Latin America, have reported no differences between teenagers raised by permissive or authoritative parents.
Perhaps this is due to differences in definitions or culture or tendency to warmer parenting. Nor were all parents in the ‘good ole’ days immune to indulging and permissiveness.[iv]
Spending time in other cultures, Michaeleen Doucleff came to believe
…our culture often has things backward when it comes to kids: We interfere too much. We don’t have enough confidence in our children. We don’t trust their innate ability to know what they need to grow. And in many instances, we don’t speak their language…
The most common parenting “styles” all revolve around control. Helicopter parents exert maximal control. Free-range parents exert minimal. Our culture thinks either the adult is in control or the child is in control.[v]
Apparently studies also it is a myth that ‘Rewards usually decrease the desirable behavior they’re intended to increase’ for
…while decreases in desirable behavior can occur following rewards, rewards quite often are followed by sustained increases in desirable behavior. This increase is quite frequently maintained once the reward is faded out.
And praise may be alright too.
…. Even the praise critics encourage the use of some praise; they just call it “encouragement” instead of “praise”.[vi]
Not that a relaxed indulgent parenting won’t be without dilemma.
What to do when our little sweethearts are no longer satisfied with taking a turn caring for the classroom lizard but now want their own hamster or kitty? Do parents allow the hamster’s water bottle to turn green or slip in with fresh water? Do they slip in to empty the kitty litter box?[vii]
Amy Anderson came from a family of 10 while her husband, Chip, was ostensibly an only child. They started their life together with only his step-son but later added two they produced together. To Amy allowing their children choice in school lunches seemed overkill whereas Chip couldn’t see what the big deal was. So one kid wants a choice of mustard, pickle or cheese and the next one doesn’t? Not an issue unless there wasn’t time or resources for that kind of choice when 10 lunches needed to be made.[viii]
A new twist on permissive parenting is trending with the cool label, parenting ‘free range’ kids. In 2008, a mother horrified the parenting world by letting her nine-year-old son ride the New York City subway alone. The mother was unapologetic, choosing to let her son range free and grow in independence, saying the concern has been blown out of proportion to reality.
Nearly 20 years later the horror remains in many hearts as a mother was arrested for letting her five-year-old walk home alone.[ix]
Rutger Bregman turns the question around. …kids can be trusted with an abundance of freedom.… The question is not: can our kids handle the freedom? The question is: do we have the courage to give it to them?[x]
Anyway, it sounds like it is a fantasy that we are always ‘in sync’ with our kids.
… research revealed that for about 50-70% of the time, parents and children are not “in sync”. During these times, they may be doing separate activities, such as a child exploring something on their own or a parent working. They rather engage in a constant “social dance” comprising being attuned to each other, failing to do so and repairing this disconnect….
And it’s this flow of connection, disconnection and reconnection that offers children an ideal mixture of parental support and moderate, useful stress that helps growing children’s social brains….
And here is a bit of a surprise: …mothers who had an insecure, anxious or avoidant attachment type showed more neural synchrony with their children….[xi]
Might tuck in here a reminder of Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712 – 1798) and his theory of child raising that supported allowing children to be free and unfettered to learn from experience naturally, unrestrained by adult direction and books. Yeah but, … he discarded his own children.
A perspective on Permissive Parenting specific to adoption
Maurice Mierau and his wife adopted brothers from Ukraine. Here is his acknowledgement of aspects of his parenting that seem to have troubled him as he may have leaned to more permissive parenting.
These kids seemed more like wild dogs who needed me to establish dominance over the pack, not exactly my strong suit….
One of Mierau’s sons saw someone on a bus with a mohawk haircut and wanted it. Mierau edged past the request by temporizing that they might talk to mom about getting one. Later Mierau said, “I was scared that Bohdan would actually remember this conversation….”
When his kids wouldn’t go to sleep one evening while they were on a visit to his parents, Mierau spent half an hour threatening, negotiating, cajoling them. In the end I said fine, do what you want, and fell onto my bed for a few hours of exhausted sleep.
When Mierau took them sledding, his son hesitated, Mierau came back with, “Peter, you have to go down the hill right now. Or else.” I had no idea what or else meant, …[xii]
John Brooks and his wife adopted an infant girl from Poland. Here is his take on their struggle.
I wish I’d had a gift for understanding my own daughter. As infuriating as her behavior was we had no reference point to determine if this was normal, because we had no other children. Instead we’d allowed our child to manipulate us into giving her whatever she wanted in order to avert her tears. It had to be us. We were incompetent parents.[xiii]
What must also be considered is the impact of adoption on a child who struggles with self-regulation or has learned a regulation that may not work in the world he or she has been adopted into. Or is simply in the emotional upheaval of a new world, one that doesn’t usually deal with the emotional immaturity or lack of confidence or whatever the adoptee’s emotional or mental state is in face of the expectationsof something like piano lessons. Yasik may have tinkered with a piano because he loved to listen to music and perhaps it had a calming effect but regular practice may have been a whole other, decidedly less calming, aspect of music for him. What was the fight he was having with piano that, we believing we had been given a young Mozart into our care, did not understand?
And once again, Deborah Gray is called upon.
…lack of structure does not bring out the best in children. It is a harmful parenting style for children who need a lot of structure to succeed. Almost without exception, children who are described in [Attaching in Adoption] need high nurture along with high structure. If they want to assure themselves that they are parenting in a kind way, not a rigid way, parents can look hard at the nurturing they are doing along with their structure.[xiv]
And then there is this
At the point of entry into the teen years, Yasik was almost as tall as I was. The 40” x 40 lbs. long gone. He was finding his way into manhood, hair as long as he could get it to grow and flipped outward in the front but wavy in the back. His acne was under control and he was smoothly tanned. He wore T shirts, boarder pants which looked to me like retro-fitted old men’s golfing pants. He had biked into town and bought them himself at a friend’s mother’s store, 2 pairs too big for him I thought, but his pants, his choice.
[i] https://jessup.edu/blog/academic-success/the-psychology-behind-different-types-of-parenting-styles/
https://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a26987389/types-of-parenting-styles
https://openpress.usask.ca/lifespandevelopment/chapter/parenting-styles
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK568743
https://www.psychologs.com/7-types-of-parenting-styles-you-might-wanna-steer-clear-from
https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/basics/parenting/parenting-styles
https://www.positive-parenting-ally.com/permissive-parenting-style.html
https://parentingscience.com/permissive-parenting
[ii] “The Wisdom of Magda Gerber: seeing infants with new eyes” Magda Gerber Legacy https://magdagerber.org
“Permissive Parenting Is Non-Intervention Because of Fear!” Positive-Parenting-Ally.com: practical advice & deep insights https://www.positive-parenting-ally.com/permissive-parenting-style.html
[iii] Bernstein, Jeffrey Ph.D. “When Is a Child’s Reward Actually a Bribe? Reinforcing motivation and self-esteem versus manipulative behavior” March 22, 2023 https://www.psychologytoday.com/ca/blog/liking-the-child-you-love/202303/when-is-a-childs-reward-actually-a-bribe
[iv] Dewar, Gwen, Ph.D. “Permissive parenting: An evidence-based guide” https://parentingscience.com/permissive-parenting/
[v] Doucleff, Michaeleen, Ph.D. Hunt, Gather, Parent: what ancient cultures can teach us about the lost art of raising happy, helpful little humans Avid Reader Press, 2022, P9.
[vi] Hupp, Stephen and Jeremy Jewell Great Myths of Child Development. Wiley-Blackwell, 2015.
[vii] Dewar, Gwen, Ph.D. “Permissive parenting: An evidence-based guide” https://parentingscience.com/permissive-parenting/
Blyth Hall, Sue Fish don’t climb trees: a whole new look at dyslexia Friesen Press, 2020, 196.
[viii] Anderson, Amy “Counting on Cousins” from Rebecca Walker, ed. One Big Happy Family Penguin Group, 2009, 63.
[ix] “Mom Arrested, Sentenced for Letting Son, 5, Walk in Neighborhood” Free-Range Kids: how parents and teachers can let go and let grow Sept 3’26 https://www.freerangekids.com/mom-arrested-sentenced-for-letting-son-5-walk-in-neighborhood/
Gray, Peter. Ph.D. “America’s worst mom” is making kids’ lives better. Free-Range Kids: A Movement That’s Gaining Ground Psychology Today June 28, 2021
[x] Bregman, Rutger Humankind: a hopeful history Bloomsbury, 2020, 286 – 295.
[xi] Vrticka, Pascal. “Why parents shouldn’t always be ‘in sync’ with their children” BBC 27 May 2024
[xii] Mierau, Maurice Detachment: an adoption memoir Freehand Books, 2014, 101,145,153.
[xiii] Brooks, John The Girl Behind the Door: a father’s quest to understand his daughter’s suicide Scribner, 2016, 62-63
[xiv] Gray, Deborah, D. Attaching in Adoption: practical tools for today’s parents Jessica Kingsley Publishers, 2002, 97.
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