The Seven Deadly Parenting Styles

Deadly Style 1: Helicopter Parenting

Hovering over your kids, hurrying to smooth every one of life's bumps

It's a bird … it's a plane … it's a helicopter parent!¹⁶ These parents constantly hover, and stop at next to nothing when it concerns their kids. They finish their homework, do and redo those science projects, and make sure their kids have every advantage. After all, they've invested too much energy into parenting; nothing should stand in the way of their kids' success. And if it does, watch out. Helicopter parents go into Black Hawk mode, swooping in for the rescue and solving each and every problem.

But all that parental involvement can backfire. This style can keep kids in a perpetual state of dependency through adulthood, leaving them unprepared to handle the many curve balls that life is sure to throw at them. If you've always been rescued or micromanaged, you may have had too little practice in developing such critical life skills as self-reliance, decision making, and problem solving. It's why large numbers of "copter kids" often suffer from what has been called "problem-solving deficit disorder"¹⁷ and have trouble developing confidence in their own capabilities and coping out there in the real world.

The Change to Parent For   Learn to be involved but not intrusive in your child's life so that she develops a healthy sense of independence and can cope someday without you.

Deadly Style 2: Incubator "Hothouse" Parenting

Pushing your kids into learning earlier than appropriate for their cognitive age and developmental level

There's nothing new about parents wanting their children to excel, but these days their quest is all about raising the Superkid (aka "a mentally superior child").¹⁸ Hothouse parents start in early: piping classical music into the nursery, using flash cards and Baby Einstein tapes (which have no proven value) to prepare their infant for reading, giving violin lessons to toddlers, and enrolling kindergartners in chess classes. Forget what developmental guidelines, based on years of scientific observation, recommend as suitable to your child's age and stage. Time is of the essence, so these parents push, push, push, all so their kids will (they hope) achieve, achieve, achieve.

A part of this push is the current standard of "success" determined by a portfolio of numbers, and these days there is no child left untested. From preschool admission tests to LSATs—it's making us crazy worrying that our kids aren't going to be good enough. So there's no time for play. It's all about tutoring (which is now a billion-dollar industry), using educational toys (another billion-dollar industry), doing extra "mind-building" activities, and studying. But we're seeing an impact from this parenting style that isn't pretty.

Kid stress, anxiety, and perfectionism have never been higher; their honesty quotients, never lower. Kid cheating is now of epidemic proportions, all because we've pushed character and developmental appropriateness out of our child-rearing formula.

The Change to Parent For   Learn to appreciate your child's natural talents and abilities, and fit your parenting to your child's developmental stage.

Deadly Style 3: (Quick-Fix) Band-Aid Parenting

Relying on fast solutions to temporarily fix a problem instead aiming for real, lasting change

We're tired. We're harried. We're short on time, and we're trying to make ends meet. We need everything to be easy and quick, including our approach to discipline. We'll do anything to get our kids to act right—as long as it'll work right now. So we use that "1-2-3 Method" ("That's warning one … warning two … warning three") to head off a tantrum, buy those fancy behavior charts, promise our kid a new Lexus if he's good, and even give out pills. Seriously.

Experts warn that this pill-popping craze is a big reason that the use of drugs designed to curb hyperactivity have tripled since 1993.¹⁹ It's just easier to give the pill than to teach kids a new way to behave, eh? Now don't get me wrong. I'm a former special education teacher, and I bless the pharmaceutical industry. There are some kids who do need prescribed medication to help them control their impulses. My concern is about those times when we rely on this Band-Aid approach really just to make life easier for ourselves. Let's just admit it.

Besides, these quick-fix strategies only teach kids to act right based on warnings, rewards, or pills. Effective discipline always is instructive and helps the child learn how to right his wrong. A quick-fix style may bring temporary relief, but almost never creates real, lasting change, which is why many of our kids keep relapsing back to those same bad behaviors and we end up more exhausted and discouraged.

The Change to Parent For   Learn that the most effective way to discipline is always to take a few minutes to help your child understand what was wrong and how to make things right.

Deadly Style 4: Buddy Parenting

Placing popularity with your child above establishing limits and boundaries or saying no

Nearly half of parents today admit that deep down they want to be their "child's best friend,"²⁰ and there sure is no bigger friendship ender than saying no. We can't stand the idea of making an unpopular decision, turning our kids down, or (heaven forbid) disciplining our kids if doing so might cause them to resent us in any way.

And it appears that our kids have our number. One survey of grade school kids found that when they crave something new, most expect to ask nine times before their parents give in.²¹ Of course we want our kids to like us—and someday they will become our friends. Right now they need a parent who sets rules and boundaries and doesn't blur the line between buddy and adult. Besides, the truth is that our inability to turn our kids down isn't helping them grow to be secure, responsible, resilient, and compassionate. Instead, it is creating what most adults believe is the most spoiled and ill-behaved generation ever. Over 80 percent of adults think kids today are more spoiled than kids were just ten or fifteen years ago.²²

The Change to Parent For   Learn to set clear boundaries and firm limits, take back your control, and realize that what your child needs most is a parent and not a friend.

Deadly Style 5: Accessory Parenting

Measuring your worth and success as a parent on the basis of your child's accolades

Forget healthy and well adjusted—over the past two decades, what has taken precedence is spawning the "perfect" child whom we can proudly show off. And thus dawned the era of the Trophy Kid Syndrome. Every little accomplishment, test score, or hockey goal suddenly became bragging rights, and oh, how parents using this style love sharing those accolades. Just in case anyone missed hearing about little Buford's latest achievement, refrigerators are always plastered with all his achievements, certificates, and gold star papers. The newest trophy—among thousands—is sure to be displayed proudly on the mantel.

Showing them off is all part of the style, as every new trophy and recently earned award is a direct reflection of how well the child has been parented. And a child's success is a living representation of a parent's own worth.

Gay Norton Edelman, senior editor of Family Circle, aptly termed this style "accessory parenting." All is fine and dandy if a parent can share something meritorious to the rest of the world or at least with the neighbor next door. ("Susie is in the gifted program, you know." "Can you believe it? Keithy made captain again.") But if the child fails or receives a less than perfect score, it can only mean that the parent somehow flunked. This style of parenting is really about making our children an extension of our own wants, needs, and dreams. It fuels excessive competitiveness among parents and creates enormous guilt and stress if we feel that our kids aren't measuring up, leaving our kids feeling as though they've let us down. If the accessory parenting style continues, the child's identity is threatened, and an unhealthy codependency emerges, with both parent and kid depending on each other for their sense of self-worth.

The Change to Parent For   Learn to see your child as a unique individual separate from yourself, and tailor your parenting to her own special traits, talents, and needs.

Deadly Style 6: Paranoid Parenting

Obsessively keeping your child safe from any physical or psychological harm

Keeping kids safe is always a top parent priority, but these days there is a heightened fear of letting our kids out of our sight for even a nanosecond. The best name for this over-the- top always worried style is paranoid parenting.²³ Of course, turning into a nervous wreck isn't hard when we're constantly reminded of dangers looming everywhere and threatening our children's safety and well-being. Kidnappers. Terrorism. School shootings. Sex predators. Cyberbullying. Online pedophiles. Tainted food. Lead-painted toys.

It's scary out there, so we rein our kids in a little tighter. We watch them closer and we protect far more—and sometimes to the extreme.

"Don't do that! You could get hurt!" "Don't talk to strangers!" "Don't go too far!"

We provide our kindergartners with those new cell phones lined with sweet Disney characters "just in case they're snatched by a child molester." We install webcams in our homes so we can peek in to ensure that our children aren't being abused by the nanny. We purchase kid jackets embedded with GPS trackers and hand sanitizers to keep them germ free. We even think about buying those backpacks lined with a bulletproof plate that protects against gunfire (designed by a couple of very concerned dads).²⁴

But constantly fretting about dangers that "might" happen only breeds fear into kids. In fact, the more we tighten our safety net, the more obsessed we become and the more anxious and less confident our kids turn out. Is it any wonder that today's kids are more anxious than any other generation?²⁵

The Change to Parent For   Learn to relax a bit more, realize when you're being too protective so that your child learns to face life, and handle your own worries so that you don't pass your fears to your child.

Deadly Style 7: Secondary Parenting

Relinquishing your influence such that your children's world is controlled more by outsiders, including corporations, marketers, and the media²⁶

In case you haven't noticed, today's kids are media driven. Computers. Wii. You- Tube. Video games. TV. Facebook. iPods. DVDs. Cell phones. It's no wonder they're called the plugged-in generation. Many kids spend more time involved with media than with anything else but sleeping.²⁷ Research shows that 99 percent of boys and 94 percent of girls ages twelve to seventeen play computer, Web, portable, or console games.²⁸

Television viewing has increased by more than an hour a day from just five years ago. Considering that almost two-thirds of all eight- to eighteen-year-olds have a TV in their bedroom, that's an easy accomplishment.²⁹ Even two- to seven-year-olds are putting in an average of about three hours per day of "screen time."³⁰ Children are especially vulnerable because they believe what they see. And make no mistake: they are bombarded with an incessant parade of images—of sex, alcohol use, violence, vulgarity, and commercialism—that are pushing them to grow up too fast too soon.

But there's another danger: all that "plugged-in" time means less face-to-face time with us. Once we take a "secondary" role in our child's eyes, we begin to lose our power, and the prevailing culture becomes our substitute. Your child becomes more vulnerable to outside pressures; he is more likely to rely on someone other than you to guide him, and more likely to adopt others' values.

The Change to Parent For   Realize that you are the most powerful influence in guiding your child's values, attitudes, and behavior as well as in protecting him against risky behaviors; intentionally find ways to stay more involved in your child's life.