Parenting by design

Move over parenting style. Designing your own parenting strategy is the way to parenting success.

Image by Victoria_Regen from Pixabay

So much has been written and spoken about parenting style recently that it would seem choosing a style is the only path to parenting success. I beg to differ.

What do authoritative, laisez faire, permissive, helicopter,  and attachment have in common?

They’re all parenting styles that come in and out of vogue.

The last two decades has seen a fixation on parenting style. “What parenting style are you?” “Which style do you favour?” “What does the research say about the best style?”

Experts and writers have even gone down the nationalistic path looking at parenting styles from different countries. Danish parenting anyone?

So great is the fixation on parenting style that a more effective option barely gets a mention. I’m talking about parenting strategy.

One size doesn’t fit all

The make-up of families in western countries today is incredibly varied. They differ according to size, ethnicity, cultural background, the number and gender of parents just to name a few variables.

Step-parenting, co-parenting, single parenting are some of the many types of parenting in vogue.

To suggest that one parenting style is better or more appropriate than another is to ignore the obvious fact that each family is unique.

While there are similarities that all families share – yes, sibling rivalry is common across all cultures and families- how families meet their needs and respond to challenges reflect circumstances that are specific to each family.

What’s your parenting strategy?

So think “strategy” rather than “style” when it comes to how you parent.

Strategy is a big picture concept that prevents parents from being reactive and sweating over the small stuff, which is exhausting.

Strategy guides technique and informs how you will deal with and manage a range of challenges and new situations you meet.

This is relevant to parents of small families as, let’s face it, everything is new, different or unexpected.

What’s important to you?

When considering your strategy it helps to consider what’s important to you as a parent. Steven Covey, author of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People offers an important clue– Start with the end in mind.

The key is to think long term, which is difficult when you’re stuck in the middle of the daily parenting mire.

Think:

What type of child are you trying to raise?

What type of an adult do you want your child to be?

Drill down past common concepts that most parents give such as '‘happy'‘, '‘successful”, “a good citizen” and “respectful of others”.

Think in terms of how your child will go about life in his family, at school and in the broader community.

Will they be independent or dependent on others? Will they be more likely to be a leaders or a follower? Will they be self-centred or generous? Kind-hearted or mean-spirited?

While some aspects of a child’s development such as genetics and environmental factors are out of your control there are many factors that you can influence as parents. That’s where your strategy comes in.

If you want to raise a child to be independent and resourceful then your daily parenting techniques will be different to those used by parents who want their child above all else to be safe and secure, rich or famous, or talented and high achievers.

If independence is an aim then independence-building and problem-solving will become part of your overall parenting strategy influencing everything from:

• how you resolve sibling disputes (upskill your kids to manage themselves),

• allocate pocket money (give them freedom to spend and learn from mistakes) and

• handle boundary-pushing (push boundaries incrementally when they are ready).

Strategy extends to other areas of family-life

Your overall parenting strategy is a big picture statement that includes the type of child you want raise and the types of methods you may follow.

Once you’ve considered your overall parenting strategy consider thinking through your preferred approaches to a number of common areas, including:

Discipline -promoting good behaviour and responding to poor behaviour

Family-bonding -building close relationships

Well-being – promoting mental health and wellbeing

Resilience – what you do when life gets hard

Education – your approach to children as learners

The list of strategies is endless so stick to a few major areas to avoid feelings of overwhelm.

Create a strategy sentence (or two) about each, which will then inform the techniques that you’ll use in family life.

For instance, if self-discipline, fairness, and respectful treatment are central to your discipline strategy then you will be less like to use rewards (they don’t promote self-discipline) and punishment (they are not always about fairness), and more likely to use consequences (they are respectful and develop self-regulation) to promote social behaviour.

Your strategies won’t always provide the answer or solution to a situation but they will give you a direction, and ensure consistency of approach, which is the cornerstone for effective parenting.

How to develop your parenting strategy

It’s important to take your time developing your parenting strategy. It’s not something to be developed on a whim.

Give yourself time and space to reflect on these key questions:

What sort of child(ren) am I raising?

What type of atmosphere should exist in my family?

What did I enjoy about my own family life, what will I repeat, leave out or change?

You don’t have to get it right straight away. A few words or sentences is a good place to start.  Eventually, consolidate your ideas and thoughts into a few central statements.

You may find it helpful to think in terms of memes to capture your thoughts.

An important strategy I used when raising my children was “Never regularly do for a child what a child can do for him or herself.” This was a perfect meme (but without an accompanying image) that reminded to use strategies that promoted independence and agency at every opportunity, within reason.

This meme-like statement was one of many spinning around in my head that helped guide and direct my parenting.

I’m not sure what parenting style that statement would belong to, and nor do I care.

It was not the only strategy I used but it was a keystone strategy, upon which other strategies and parenting techniques evolved.

I also found that having a parenting strategy allowed me to focus on the bigger picture -that is, what’s important what’s not - and allowed me to play the long parenting game.

The long game is the only game to play when raising kids, and it begins by designing a strategy to hang your parenting hat on. If you do nothing else, think strategy not style when raising your kids and your effectiveness will increase tenfold.