What’s your parenting style?
Many parents are plagued with guilt. That’s because they are either too controlling (“I’m the Boss”) or too permissive (“Call me Milquetoast”).
Some parents are a combination of controlling and permissive, vacillating between two extremes but not being consistent. Positive Discipline parents are neither. They practice firmness coupled with kindness.
Which of the following styles fits for you?
The Boss: You have all the power and your kids should obey you simply because you are the parent.
Milquetoast: Your children are the centre of the universe, so they have all the power.
Kind and Firm: Your child is part of your family, not the centre of the universe. You know your child’s personality and can create boundaries without breaking your child’s spirit.
Still not sure which is your style? Here are more clues. Both the boss and the milquetoast act instead of being proactive. That means they wait till something happens and respond to it in the moment. Kind and Firm parents take a step back, observe and think before they act. They work on ways to show their child what to do instead of constantly saying YES! or NO!
The Boss often looks for blame or fault and relies on punishment as the primary discipline tool. Kind and Firm parents look for solutions instead of blame and realize that the person who can and must change first is the parent. By changing yourself even in the smallest ways, you can positively influence your child’s behaviour.
