Parenting Styles

Good parenting involves love, limits, and listening.

4 Types of Parenting Styles:

1 Permissive

High on warmth and connection, but not good with limits and consequences. High love/Low limits.

2 Authoritarian

Low on caring, highly over structured and harsh.

3 Uninvolved

Low on care, low on structure and limits.

4 Authoritative

High warmth, high limits and consequences. This is the best antidote for Oppositional Defiant Disorder/Conduct Disorder.

Most lead to insecure attachments with 2 and 3 types.

Prone to addictions with 1 and 3 and some with 2 types.

5 Contradictory parenting

Cancel each other out, parents lose power, breeds inconsistency.

Can’t do individual work with Oppositional Defiant Disorder kids, need to work with family. If divorced it’s worse.

If parents won’t come, tell kid he has to grow up too soon and parent himself. Be DIRECTIVE with parents. Kids fill in the blanks of inconsistencies with the worst scenario and blame themselves.

Despite appearing rebellious, they are loyal to their families. When a kid and parents were fighting on initial session he asked parents to leave the room. Therapist in charge. Do the opposite of what’s expected. This gets the kids attention so he’ll listen to you. Ask kid why they care so much for their parents. They put so much energy into his attachment to them. You are reframing his acting out into caring.

Fine tune parenting because they are stuck. When what they’re doing doesn’t work they do MORE of it.

Parenting – they’re a part of the problem. If the kid is given a diagnosis they can externalize the problem as outside of them. They need to learn from you about the kid. What do they think is going on? Say I might need your help. Needs help with parents, need parental involvement. Explain categories of parenting and ask where they fit. Ask them what’s a good parent. They’re usually very accurate. You’re having them see the parenting problems. Ask a series of open ended questions about their parenting. Say, “Tell me more about your problem setting limits?” How does your permissiveness affect things? Does it affect what’s going on?

Most parenting styles comes from family of origin issues. Can I ask you about when you were a kid. Part of me won’t let me limit – HIT THAT! The problem may be they’re being too nice, they need balance.

Internal Family Systems – has parts. Reframe only part of the issue. How far off are you from authoritative? There is no treatment without the above work with parents. Any parent loses power when they do the same non-working thing over and over. If kids memorize what parents will do, they’re tuned out. Be predictably unpredictable.

Out-positioning – “You’re room could be messier than it actually is.” It puts the ball in their court. Need to shift to a consulting role of parenting as they get older because you can’t actually MAKE them do anything. Punishment never changes behaviors, it increases resentments and fear or simply maintains behaviors.

Never mess up an opportunity for the natural consequences to happen.

An unpredictable environment leads to insecure attachment which leads to anxiety. Do anything different, anything different than you’ve been doing. What’s the kid doing that you like?   Make them come up with something. The KID needs to be concerned about his homework – more than you.

Neuro-Adolescence ends with boys at 23. Girls are a couple years earlier. If some reward for negative behaviors parents are reinforcing without realizing it. Give kids an illusion of choices.

Over praising leads to distrust.  Acknowledge as it’s a fact, with praise there’s emotion added. Face to face conversations shut boys down, sit sideways and look at their head. Ask kids questions later at night – after 9:00 PM and it will go better.

-Author unknown