What's your parenting strategy?

Move over parenting style. There’s a way better option for parents and kids.

Photo by Kelly Sikkema on Unsplash

So much has been written and spoken about parenting style over the last few decades that it’s easy to forget that there’s a much better option to pursue.

Authoritative, Laisez faire, permissive, helicopter and attachment are parenting styles that come in and out of vogue at different times.

The last two decades has seen a fixation by experts and parents alike on parenting style. What parenting style are you? Which do you favour? What does the research tell us about what style is best?

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

Is the Danish style the best? What about French style of raising kids? As for Chinese mothers – aren’t they the toughest parents yet?

So great is the fixation on parenting style that we’ve neglected to consider a far more relevant, personal option – 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.

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 – for instance, sibling rivalry is common across all cultures and families- how families meet their needs and challenges reflect personal circumstances that are specific to each family.

What’s your parenting strategy?

Parents are much better placed thinking about the strategy they use rather than the parenting style they favour.

Strategy is a big picture concept that prevents parents from being reactive and stressing over the small stuff.

Strategy guides technique and informs parents how they deal and manage a range of challenges and new situations.

Parents of small families are always dealing with new situations as most things are new.

Parents of four or more children have seen it all before by the time their youngest comes along so they are less flummoxed when friendship problems arise at school, argumentative children and the move into adolescence and all the awkwardness, angst and anger that comes with it.

What’s important to you?

When considering your strategy is helps to consider what’s important to you as a parent. Steven Covey, author of Seven habits of Highly Successful People offers an important clue with his first habit – Start with the end in mind.

Consider what type of child are trying to raise? What type of an adult do you want your child to be?

Drill down past terms such as happy, successful, a good citizen and respectful of others which are top level concepts most parents give.

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 leaders or 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 is where your strategy plays a part.

If you want to raise a child to be independent and resourceful then how you handle different situations that arise, and your everyday parenting techniques will vary from parents who want their child above all else to be safe and secure. Independence be damned.

If independence is one of your aims then independence-building becomes part of your overall parenting strategy influencing everything from how you resolve sibling disputes (you’ll attempt to upskill your kids to manage themselves), allocate pocket money (you’ll probably give them greater freedom to spend and learn from mistakes) and handling boundary-pushing (you’ll probably push boundaries incrementally to allow them to develop independence gradually).

Strategy extends to other parenting areas.

Your overall parenting strategy is a big picture statement that can be summed up in a few sentences and 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 strategies that you will use to manage family that fit in with your big picture.

Consider the approaches you will use for the following:

Discipline -when children misbehave.

Family-bonding -building close relationships.

Well-being – promoting mental health and wellbeing.

Resilience -when life gets hard.

Education – how you will prepare children as learners.

The list of strategies is endless.

Choose the areas of family life that are important to you and consider the approach you’ll take for each. A sentence or two about each is a good start, which will inform the techniques that you’ll use in family life.

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

Your strategies won’t always provide the answer or solution to a situation that arises, but they will provide you with a direction, and ensure consistency of approach.

Start big.

To develop a parenting strategy, spend some time considering these big picture questions:

What sort of child am I raising?

What type of atmosphere should exist in my family?

How will I go about doing this?

Mull them over. Take your time. Brainstorm if you want. Eventually, consolidate your ideas and thoughts into a few central questions. In may be 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 meme like statement was one of many spinning around in my head that helped guide and direct my parenting.

What parenting style is that? I’m not sure. But I do know that it was a deliberate strategy that removed much of the stress from parenting and allowed me to focus on the bigger picture and play the long parenting game.

This is the only game worth playing.