Parenting teenagers can bring out the best and worst in us. Knowing which parenting style you tend to use when you’re upset, anxious, annoyed, or trying to cope with your teen growing up can be a game-changer. Which style do you use?
Four styles of parenting
The Helicopter
The helicopter parent makes a lot of noise, hovers, and doesn’t go very fast. Helicopters are built to hover, rescue, and protect. This is why emergency response teams couldn’t function without them. But what if you are parenting this way when there is no emergency? Your teenager interprets this as “You’re fragile, and you can’t make it without me.”
Parents often helicopter out of guilt. They refrain from imposing or allowing consequences because they themselves are uncomfortable giving consequences. When their children are hurt, they bail them out because they are hurt too. In short, they won’t let their kids fail.
These parents confuse love, protection, and caring and struggle to tell them apart.
The Drill Sergeant
These parents are all about getting into action right now. They believe that children need to grow up to be obedient. Threats are their main tool – such as “Clean your room right now, or you’re grounded.”
Teens with parents like this often do not know how to make decisions because they are always barking orders. They never develop an internal voice. These teens are often prone to rebellion. However, they will find other rebellious teens to copy because they’re still struggling to find their own way.
The adult world doesn’t operate on punishment; it operates on consequences. Teens interpret their punishments as “you are too dumb to think for yourself.”
Laissez-Faire
These parents let children raise themselves by themselves. If left to their own devices, teens will grow into successful, creative people if parents just would not interfere.
Other times, these parents believe that they need to be their teen’s best friends and struggle with holding them accountable.
This is not a parenting type but an abdication of parenting responsibilities.
Teens interpret this as “you don’t care about me” and often start acting out to get attention or a rise from their parents, so they know that they care.
Consultant
This parenting type asks questions and offers choices. The consultant parent burdens the teen with decision-making while being clear about their limitations. They do not allow themselves to be abused. And these parents do not shout or scream at their teens, and they do not perform rescue missions.
They understand that their teens are captains of their own fate.
Three rules of consultant parenting:
- Take good care of yourself
- Provide your child with choices you can live with.
- Take action.
Shifting into a consultant role
It is challenging for parents to shift from raising children, where they are essentially benevolent dictators, to raising teenagers and stepping into a consultant role.
To help make that transition:
- Use ownership language. Let them know your limits and thoughts without making it about them.
- Do not take ownership of your teenager’s problems. Muse or be curious – but understand it’s their problem to solve.
- Thoughtful and curious questions about their lives go a very long way. (avoid lectures, rants, and “telling them how it is”)
- Have an attitude of curiosity (avoid sarcasm or demeaning tones)