Which Parenting Style is Best?
Which Parenting Style is Best?
There are so many different parenting styles: positive parenting, peaceful parenting, gentle parenting, authoritative, authoritarian it can be confusing. And it’s a hot topic, some of the most highly searched terms on google for parenting are:
“Which is the best parenting style?
What style of parenting is most effective?
Which parenting style helps children be successful?
What is the least effective parenting style?
This makes sense. Most of us want to parent more gently and more peacefully than how we were raised (noble aims). Resilience is also a key quality that parents often want for their children. Jumping on board with a parenting style or following a “parenting expert” acts as a road map.
The trouble with thinking about parenting styles is this- yes it's a map but it neglects the traveller.. I.e you the parent. If we are always thinking of parenting as something you do rather than someone you are we can get stuck. The truth is you can have read 1000 parenting books, have all the tools in the world but if you are stuck in high reactivity, guilt, shame, scarcity and frustration those tools are useless.
Parenting styles can also mess with our intuition. We might intuitively feel that our child needs something but second guess ourselves if we feel like it’s not part of the parenting style we are following.
Why I Don't Like the Term Gentle Parenting
I am not a gentle parenting coach. Lot's of people have assumed I am but I have issue with the term.
Now of course I am down with gentleness that’s all good but…
Gentle parenting without doing any personal growth work can lead to burn out.
It can go a bit like this, we can have all the scripts for gentle parenting but if you are feeling hot rage inside your body and trying to gentle parent we can end up repressing. Of course raging at your kids is not something we want to do either but squelched down rage comes at a cost both to physical and mental health.
The first person we need to be gentle with is ourselves. Most of us were inadequately soothed as kids and what we need is not more books and tools but more soothing, grounding and resourcing. From this base we can be more gentle in our parenting.
When we buy in too much to different parenting styles this thing can happen where we can end up feeling like we are failing. Because 99% of us were not brought up in parenting styles like gentle parenting of course it doesn't come naturally to us. It's like learning an entirely new language. Most of us were modelled violence in shaming/ threat based language or in action through isolation or smacking so parenting more gently is going to feel like shifting enormous paradigms.
The issue is that when parents feel like they are not parenting gently they feel shame and from shame comes reactivity.
Here's a suggestion. Instead of following a parenting style, aim to understand yourself better so that you are naturally less reactive and trust that leadership does not have to involve violence. Aim to understand your child better and question whether your expectations are in line with child development/ your child's additional needs, and lastly, prioritise strong, deep connection with your child
From these core pillars we can parent gently and peacefully in a natural way following our own script and our own path.
The best parenting style is your unique parenting style that feels good both for you and your child.
The best parenting style is you parenting without fear.
3 Things That Matter More than Parenting Style
I'm a parent coach but I also don't think there is one way to parent. There are loads of different ways to parent because parenting is relationships and relationships are based on different people with different needs, values and personalities.
Whatever your parenting style I think these three things help to ensure secure attachment and a close relationship with your child. A close relationship buffers a lot.
My approach is not to tell you what to do. But to give you some ideas to play with and time and space to do the inner work so that you are able to be warm, understand yourself and show up with emotional availability for your kids.
1) Warmth- Being Warm with your children and delighting in their presence
2) Working on Your Own Junk- your patterns, blocks, boundaries, nervous system, childhood trauma and limiting beliefs
3) Being Emotionally Available- to listen, hold space and soothe
