Balancing Strict Parenting with Permissive Parenting

Upjourney published a series of articles on the topic of permissive parenting, including an interview with Calming Communities' Robyn Reyna. Check out the snippet below or follow the link here to see the full article.

"When mental health professionals talk about permissive parenting, we are referring to an extreme type of parenting that involves very little oversight or structure in a child’s life.

But when most people call something permissive, they simply refer to something less strict than they would be or prefer. A prime example is a style of parenting called gentle parenting.

Gentle parenting focuses on staying calm and connected to your child no matter what, so when they do something wrong, you can calmly explain to them the problem and seek solutions together rather than punishing them.

When done well, gentle parenting includes structure, routine, expectations, and natural consequences, which is why it’s not actually what a specialist would call permissive parenting. Still, many people believe it is permissive simply because it does not involve punishment.

True permissive parenting is inconsistent and unstructured. Parents over-share their own emotions and experiences with their children to the point of causing the child distress.

They often give a child an expectation such as working hard in school, but if the child gets a zero because they simply didn’t do it (a clear sign of not working hard), the parent may make excuses and not apply any logical consequence.

They may even shield the child from natural consequences such as being forced to make it up in detention."

Check out the rest of the interview with Robyn Rausch at Upjourney.