When it comes to parenting styles, the field of psychology has a lot to offer. Interestingly, many traditional parenting styles have developed with the times, morphing into more contemporary approaches that focus on the efforts some parents make to help their children succeed. Formal psychology theories based around parenting styles like “authoritative” and “permissive” are now being replaced by lay-titles like “helicopter” and “lawnmower.” What does all this mean, and how should parents help kids succeed without overstepping appropriate boundaries?
Today’s parenting approaches examined
You have likely heard of the helicopter parent, defined as a parent who takes an overprotective or excessive interest in the life of their child. Helicopter parents hover of their kids, always keeping a watchful eye over potential threats and danger. While the intent of the helicopter parent it to help the child, over-protecting kids can leave them behind when developing life skills like focus, decision-making, assertiveness, and problem-solving. Allowing kids to enjoy some autonomy, as well as the ability to fail, helps kids build self-esteem, and also helps galvanize human resiliency when experiencing failure.
Cranking things up a bit and we have the lawnmower parent, the type of parent that not only hovers, but takes an active role in problem-solving and resolving conflicts. Lawnmower parents get the name for their willingness to intervene and “mow down” any obstacle that stands in the way of their child. Examples of lawnmower parent actions involve getting coaches fired, starting negative social media campaigns about the coach/school, and even making direct threats. Similar to helicopter parents, lawnmower parents prevent their kids from figuring out situations, resolving conflicts, and overcoming hurdles — instead, mom/dad simply take of issues.
The final category of parenting is what I call the steamroller parent, the kind of parent that will go to almost any length to ensure their child is afforded special opportunities to succeed. Examples of actions that steamroller parents take include seeking community/school leadership positions to control the narrative and outcomes, personally befriending decision makers to get their kid ahead, making big financial contributions and gifts to the school (for expected reciprocity), and influencing important alumni. The idea here, as the name implies, is to steamroll any potential threats that might get in the way, and to do so in the most dramatic and aggressive ways. Here again, parents who take on the steamroller approach stunt the mental health and developmental growth of their child by “rolling over” problems and obstacles.
While there are no formal criteria to determine where one parenting style stops and another begins, there are a few general themes parents can think about in order to prevent falling into any of the aforementioned categories:
- Let your child problem-solve. Help your child become more assertive, and learn how to self-advocate when necessary, by learning important communication and conflict resolution skills.
- Support, don’t impede, the direction of your child’s sports programs. Try and understand the goals and philosophies of the team, and lend help where you can.
- Provide constructive feedback when needed. Rather than working to immediately oust a coach, try instead to offer objective feedback with the hopes of future improvement.
- Be weary of actions that could appear overly-patronizing. Optics count, so make sure your contributions are not viewed by some as solely designed to only help your child.
Final thoughts
Help your child succeed by playing a supporting role, rather than a dominating role. Instead of immediately assuming the fix is in for your child, try instead to learn the many ways in which your child can improve. Instead of starting a campaign to get the coach fired, why not have a conversation and see if talking helps clarify matters. And before buying your way to a starting position by making a huge donation to the booster club, teach your child the value of working hard toward a challenging goal.
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