Can A Permissive Parenting Style Hurt Your Child?
If you’re raising a child, you likely find yourself wondering sometimes how your parenting decisions will impact your child. You may worry if you’ve given them enough guidance, support, care, and compassion, or if you’ve maybe given them too much of something. Different parents can have very different approaches to how they raise their children, and researchers have come up with several different possible categories of broader parenting styles. These styles include authoritative, authoritarian, permissive, and uninvolved. In this article, we’ll take a look at permissive parenting in particular to examine its possible effects.
What is a permissive parenting style?
Permissive parenting is a parenting style that tends to involve being warm and nurturing but placing very low demands on your child. You tend to give them very few rules and very few guidelines. There are very few consequences to actions because there aren’t many rules that guide what type of actions the child should or shouldn’t engage in. The child is mostly left to their own devices to do whatever they may or may not want. If that means getting into things and making a mess or not doing the chores they were asked to help out with, the permissive parent often lets it slide.
Being a friend to your child rather than a parent
These types of parents are often viewed as a friend rather than the parent. Children may feel like they are very loved and cared for, but they don’t feel like they have a parent guiding them. Instead, they have a friend who wants to spend time with them and have fun but doesn’t instill rules, guidelines, or expectations. The parent lets them get away with a lot of things.
Permissive parents give great freedom to children but very little responsibility
There is little control or discipline of any kind with permissive parenting, and the parent tends to let the child do whatever they wants to do. “Kids will be kids” may be a fitting motto for this style. With permissive parenting, parents may “bribe” their children to encourage good behavior rather than using rules and consequences. Toys, gifts, and even food may be given as a type of bribe. Children may be given a great deal of freedom but very little responsibility because the parents believe that they should be left to their own devices and allowed to be kids as much as possible. There is little in the way of a schedule or any form of structure in the household, and children may even be included in major (adult) decisions.
The pros of permissive parenting
This parenting style can have its benefits. With permissive parenting, a common benefit is a close relationship between the parent and the child. The child feels loved, and they feel like their parent is their friend, which may mean that they feel they can be open and honest in most cases.
These children may also feel they can explore the world around them and be more daring than some of their peers. They may feel freer to express themselves and try new things and likely won’t be afraid of getting out there and doing something different.
The cons of permissive parenting
On the other hand, there are some drawbacks to this type of parenting. Permissive parenting can lead children to have very little self-control and self-management. Because they have never had rules, guidelines, or consequences for breaking the rules, they may have difficulty learning how to calm down, when to listen to authority figures, and even how to step back from a situation that could be potentially dangerous or reckless. They tend to be more thrill-seeking and impulsive.
Children raised with this style tend to have low levels of achievement, perhaps because they have no expectations to meet or goals to achieve. In other parenting styles, the parents may require the child to get certain grades or show at least a level of effort, but this is rarely the case in permissive parenting.
Because there are few rules and the rules are not enforced, the child may have difficulty understanding boundaries, learning how to solve problems, or learning how to make decisions independently. They may get in trouble as they get older because they don’t understand the rules or the consequences of breaking them.
Because permissive parenting often means the child does not need to worry about being told no, these children may be more demanding and aggressive and have less emotional self-management than other children. This may occur because the answer is not always going to be yes in other areas of their life, and the child has not learned to cope with these experiences.
They may also not learn how to effectively manage their time or follow healthy habits because they don’t understand the consequences of these decisions and are not used to having guidelines around these things.
How permissive parents can improve their parenting style
If you are engaging in a permissive parenting style, you may want to consider alternatives that could be better suited to your needs and the needs of your child. Adopting elements from other parenting styles may help you support and encourage your child’s growth more effectively.
Attending therapy to adjust parenting styles to benefit your child
If you would like help in improving your parenting skills or would like support with parenting concerns, online therapy can help. In fact, research has shown that family-based therapy delivered via telehealth is effective at improving “relational and mental health outcomes for family, parent, and child measures.”
Many parents tend to have very busy schedules, and it can be difficult to find the time for something like therapy on top of the many other responsibilities and commitments you have on your plate. With online therapy, you can meet with a therapist wherever you have internet, so there’s no commute necessary, which may make it easier to fit into hectic schedules.
Takeaway
Permissive parenting is a parenting style that tends to involve being warm and nurturing but giving very few, if any, rules and guidelines to your child. This parenting style has a range of possible pros and cons. One possible benefit is that it may create a close relationship between the parent and child. But possible negative effects on the child include low self-management, low self-control, impulsivity, and more. For support with parenting concerns, online therapy can help.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What are the advantages of raising children with permissive parenting?
Permissive parenting comes with some possible advantages. First, children raised by a permissive parent or parents tend to be self-assured. This is because permissive parents are often very warm and nurturing, and they encourage their children to express themselves freely. This choice of parenting style may lead to confidence and a willingness to try new things.
Children raised by permissive parents may also be very creative. Since a permissive parent sets fewer limits and rules, these children often get the opportunity to experiment with many different types of hobbies and discover their passions. Without the rigidity of structure and rules like the ones often set by authoritative parents, children can easily tap into their innate creativity. Permissive parenting also often leads to children who are interested in exploration. Oftentimes, permissive parents and their children have a very close relationship. This is partly because a permissive parent typically acts more like a friend than a parent.
What type of parenting style is best for a child?
Authoritative parenting is often considered the best of the common parenting styles by experts. Authoritative parents are calm, kind, patient, and empathetic, but they also expect a lot out of their children and set clear rules and boundaries. Children of authoritative parents tend to excel academically, socially, emotionally, and behaviorally. They are likely to become self-reliant and independent thanks to the structure and expectations put in place by the parenting authoritative style.
An authoritative parent has a couple of things in common with a permissive parent; both offer plenty of support and love to their children. However, authoritative parents make a point of putting rules and expectations into place, while permissive parents allow children to do as they please.
What are some examples of permissive parenting?
One example of permissive parenting could be feeling unable to tell your child “no.” Permissive parents are much more likely to let their children get away with misbehaving because they want to avoid upsetting them at all costs. Choosing not to enforce rules and boundaries, like bedtime or curfew, is also a frequent example of permissive parenting.
What are passive parents?
Passive parents are also called permissive parents. They are the parents who use permissive parenting as an approach to disciplining their children.
What are the 4 types of parenting styles?
There are 4 main categories of parenting styles– authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved. Each of these types of parenting has a different approach to raising children. However, there are some parents who often blend some approaches depending on their comfort.
Which is an example of the permissive parenting style?
Permissive parenting is used by permissive parents who are greatly affectionate, lenient, and indulgent toward their children. One example of this kind of parenting is parents allowing their child to stay up late at night even if this kid has a class early in the morning.
Is permissive parenting OK?
With this easy and boundary-free approach, this type of parenting may feel like the easiest path to peace. But when the parents are not willing or cannot set kind and firm limits for their children, it often affects other people. Moreover, the effects of permissive parenting can also have consequences for children.
How do permissive parents act?
Permissive parents usually look at themselves as more of a friend than a parent to their children. Thus, children of permissive parents are not forced to have mature behavior. These parents do not discipline their children, instead of guiding them and setting rules for them, they just let them do what they want.
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