Over coming your parents parenting

As we make our journey to adulthood, most of us are licking our wounds from childhood. In fact most clients come to counseling with an idea that their parents are “going to be blamed” in some way for their current situation. We have an understanding that patterns get repeated, that we learn from our environment and that we seek out the familiar. Sounds like a recipe to repeat childhood issues throughout adulthood. While we have the intention of “never turning out like my parents” we generally become a mirror image of them or 180 degrees away from them, which is not any healthier, just opposite.

The abused child has the intention of never abusing his children. He never wants his children to feel the pain, the rejection of not been heard or treated as an object rather then a valuable human. Admirable intention but it actually becomes, never disciplining his children. It is wonderful that he has been able to change the pattern of abuse but has it really changed? For his children’s generation, there has been no physical abuse, in fact it has been the opposite. There has also not been guidance, no consequences for actions and no opportunity for the child to learn how to self-regulate. Now if his children follow suit and they become a mirror image of that parent and champion a “no discipline” parenting style there is no physical abuse but also no learning. If that child grows to create a parenting style 180 degrees away from his parents the abuse is back. So you can see that the pattern flip flops from abuse to no discipline to abuse.

How do we decide which direction to go? It boils down to how much respect we have for our parents parenting. If we have no respect for them as parents because of a lack of guidance we will go 180 degrees the other direction and provide lots and lots of guidance, believing we would have been so much better off with structure and guidance. How much is enough? When we believe we know what is best for our children we make all of their decisions for them and don’t take their thoughts into consideration. We set a plan that is best for them and we will guide, prod, or steer relentlessly until they comply. Sometimes that means “putting the fear in them”. Of course as adults we do have greater insight to situations and have the foresight to see what situations to avoid. We are able to make great decisions for our children. You will know you are crossing a line (to over controlling) when you make a decision to chart the course of your child’s life with out taking their interests, thoughts, and talents into account. That would be choosing a life we want for them rather then a life about what they want to achieve. Most of us would not feel very important or valuable if someone else decided the course of our lives. Nor would we be very motivated to move down that chosen path because it doesn’t represent our interests.

As a parent it is incumbent upon you to look at the intention of the structure and guidance you provide. Is it about the kids toeing the line and doing what you told them to do because you believe that is respectful? Is your parenting about “keeping the peace”, keeping the kids happy so they don’t whine, complain or dislike you? Is your parenting about guiding your child to be the best person he can be? Let’s look at each style to see how we got there and what we would like to change if anything.


It is commonly agreed in psychology that there are four types of parenting styles (Maccoby & Martin, 1983).

Indulgent parents (also referred to as permissive or non directive parents) are more responsive then demanding. They do not require mature behavior. Because they do not require mature behavior, there is no learning about self-management and self-regulation. These are the parents who do everything for their child, including fighting their battles, and bailing them out of the trouble they create time and time again. Children raised in this environment are more likely to be involved in problem behavior, but curiously, have high self esteem. (Weiss & Schwartz, 1996).

Authoritarian parents are highly demanding and directive but not very responsive. They expect their children to “toe the line” and obey them without explanation. Sounds like the military doesn’t it? “Don’t question my orders, just follow them.” Authoritarian parents provide well ordered, well structured environments. The structure seems to be the most valued part of the relationship. This type of parenting style values conformity to the structure over the individual needs. Obedience and status oriented, those are the concerns of the day. Children in this environment tend to have lower self esteem and lower social skills, but don’t usually engage in problem behavior. (Baumind, 1991; Weiss & Schwartz 1996, Miller et al., 1993).


Authoritative parents are both demanding and responsive. They impart clear structure and standards for their child’s behavior. They are assertive, letting the child know what is expected of them and why, and what the natural consequences will be for not following the structure. Their discipline is not punitive but rather supportive in helping the child reach the goal. The parenting goal for this type of parenting style is to help the child learn to self regulate, self monitor, be socially and personally responsible. These children tend to have very good social skills, good self-regular skills, and are able to respond to the needs of others. (Baumrind, 1989).

Uninvolved or neglectful parents are both low in responsiveness and demandingness. In extreme cases this parenting style my encompass both rejecting-neglecting and neglectful parents (Baumrind, 1991).These kids are on their own. They don’t learn any appropriate boundaries and are always guessing about what is the right way to do something. They tend to have very low self-esteem, and poor social skills.



Two important elements in parenting are parental responsiveness and parental demandingness (Maccoby & Martin, 1983). Parental responsiveness, also known as parental warmth or supportiveness refers to the extent to which parents intentionally foster individuality, self-regulation, and self-assertion by being attuned, supportive and acquiescent to children’s special needs and demands (Baumrind, 1991). Parental demandingness refers to the behavioral control. This refers to the claims the parents make on the child to become integrated into the family whole, by their maturity demands, supervision, disciplinary efforts and willingness to confront the child who disobeys (Baumrind, 1991).


When we look at the key elements of parenting, responsiveness, and demandingness, it is important to know how discipline fits into the picture. Discipline doesn’t mean to hurt or harm, it means to teach. When we look at how we teach our children what they need to know to be socially appropriate, it is likely going to be the way we learned to be socially appropriate or 180 degrees different then we learned. Perhaps it is time to pick some of the positive aspects we learned from our parents parenting, and combine them with things we wish they would have done. Perhaps our parents provided great structure but didn’t have any flexibility about changing situations. We wish they had been able to go with the flow at times. Perhaps that is what we can provide for our kids. Structure with flexibility; that will seem more respectful to all involved and be more responsive to evolving situations. Perhaps your parents were not “neglectful” but certainly were under responsive to our needs. Perhaps we can learn to respond in a more loving way based on our experience but temper that emotion so as not to get in a situation of over responding.

As parents we have the responsibility to teach our children how to live in the world. How to self regulate and manage their own behavior. We need to teach them that there are natural consequences for every decision they make. The best way to teach is first hand experience. That means allowing the natural consequences to occur. If he doesn’t turn in his assignment on time, he will lose points and no one can change that. If he didn’t get clear directions on how to do the project, he will not understand clearly how to do the project. If he doesn’t behave in a socialized way, he will not get the social result he wants.

Teaching your child to self regulate and manage his own behavior is the first step of social behavior and maturity. If your child doesn’t learn in pre-K that it isn’t socially acceptable to bite your friend, he will not learn how to have friends. He will not learn the other critical social steps to maturity. I know, it sounds simplistic, but if he doesn’t learn that it is not socially acceptable to hurt his friends to get his way, how will he move to the next step of empathy? Just like your child is developing his I.Q., he is developing his E.Q. (emotional quotient). E.Q. may turn out to be even more important that I.Q.

In a nut shell emotional quotient is social savey. Does this person know how to play nice with others, in the school yard or on your project team? Does he have the social skills to share his milk with a friend who forgot hers or wine and dine a potential client for your firm? Does he intimidate those around him or can he put anyone at ease with his finesse? When you look at these examples, you know who you would want to work with, just like the kids on the play ground know who they want to play with. The lessons start early and grow with your child, if you as a parent allow it, and nurture your child through the situations. Social learning begins with accountability. Everyone needs to be held accountable for their behavior. Accountability grows with the child. If we don’t give the friend biter a time out and tell him that behavior is not allowed, and teach him how to say he is sorry to his friend, how could we expect him to navigate the social dynamics of an adult relationship, difficult coworkers, or in-laws of a different culture? These are real life situations that are difficult to manage with good social skills and will likely be impossible with little social learning.

Accountability is the cornerstone of responsibility. You won’t learn to accept responsibility if you can’t learn how to be accountable. If you look at the word responsibility, it literally means the ability to respond. Do you have the ability to respond in an appropriate way? If you don’t have the cornerstone of accountability in place you will not develop that ability. You will simply learn how to react. We have all been around reactionary people. They are very unpleasant, emotional, angry, defensive, and blaming. They blame anyone and everyone, because they do not know how to respond appropriately. They react to shift the focus on to someone else. Like your children, each pointing at the other when the living room lamp breaks “he did it!” Reactionary people are whiners. They want what they want when they want it. They don’t have the communication skills to assertively ask for what they want, state why it is important to them or have the patience to let it unfold for them. They want it now! They have learned how to whine louder and louder, or outburst their anger bigger and bigger to get what they want, when they want it. Likely, the product of indulgent parents who were uncomfortable with conflict. I just want my kid happy. What is the expense of this behavior? I can’t see a happy adult relationship with this kind of behavior, I don’t see too many career advancements in his future, in fact this kind of person has not even learned to meet his own needs appropriately, and will always demand someone else meet them for him. If you think that sounds like a three year old, you would be right. It can be hard to watch a 3 year old tantrum to manipulate, or perhaps hard to endure if it is a day of tantruming but you certainly expect it in this age group. When an adult has a tantrum, people will walk away.

When we raise our child without accountability and fail to teach them responsibility. We have just raised him to look for his happiness, in someone else constantly meeting his needs. We have just raised this person up to only see his personal power in the big emotional outburst of the moment, scaring or manipulating others into doing what he wants but we have not taught him how to make things happen for himself. We have rendered this guy powerless in his life unless he wants to learn responsibility. In my experience, the longer a person takes to learn accountability and responsibility, the less likely he is going to want to learn it. If a grown adult doesn’t want to learn, he won’t. By adulthood it seems more convenient to have others take your responsibility, that is the skill he was taught. There is also a tremendous secret fear that he may not be able to adequately meet the responsibility, and not wanting to look foolish or weak, he will avoid, or get angry that someone else hasn’t done it yet or simply lie about his role in it.

How in the world do we get to this point? What keeps us from holding our children accountable? Lots! It can be painful to hold your child accountable. It hurts to watch them upset, or ashamed or guilty. Sometimes their behavior can be so embarrassing, we just want to walk away and hope it magically changes. Some of us don’t know how to hold ourselves or others accountable. If you came from a family with poor boundaries, no guidelines, uninvolved parents or neglectful parents, you didn’t learn the skills. If you came from a family of very harsh parents, too strict, an authoritarian household (you do it may way now) you likely didn’t learn accountability and responsibility as a very positive thing. It was likely taught through force, humiliation, shame or guilt. Coming out of that environment, you may assume that holding your child accountable will create the same humiliating lesson (if you don’t do it right, you are bad).

Healthy accountability doesn’t leave scars. It can be painful to make mistakes and learn, but it is not shameful, or humiliating to learn what you are responsible for, learn the tools to respond appropriately, and succeed at doing it. In fact it creates self-esteem, confidence, and sense of self power. What do I mean by healthy accountability? Only holding someone accountable for what is theirs. I can’t be accountable for what is yours because I don’t have any power over you. I can’t do your work or make you do it. I can only do mine. In abusive homes, often times children are held accountable for things they have no control over, things that are not theirs. A drunken parent may become enraged that one child left toys out and blame the older one for allowing it to happen, or the other parent for a crying baby, or worse yet, blame those around him for his own abusive behavior (you are making me hurt you because you were bad). Clearly, that is not healthy accountability. That is impossible expectations.

Often times, coming out of that abusive environment will make you crave control. You may only feel safe if you control every aspect of everything. You become the guy who does everything for his kids and does not give them any responsibility, partly because you want the control to do everything your way, and partly because you don’t want your kids to feel bad, or dislike you. What are you teaching them? If that is where you came from, you need to learn what healthy accountability is so you can become responsible for your own behavior, and let go of the burden of carrying everyone’s responsibility. Once you learn for yourself, it is much easier to teach your children and really feel good about the teaching.

If you come from a family of no rules, no appropriate teaching of responsibility, chances are the home you have created is one of two types of homes. The first type mirror’s your own childhood home, neglectful, no caring, parent to take responsibility for raising their children. No one providing for the children’s their basic needs. That is a case for the authorities to get involved. Maybe your parenting skills are slightly better then your parents and you have only created a subset of neglectful home. Perhaps your home doesn’t meet the CPS criteria for neglectful. You are a loving parent, you have no intention of neglecting your children, their basic needs are met but in your home, there is no responsible parent (no parent responding to situations appropriately). Your kids are really on their own to make decisions; you are not using your parent power to teach them how to make appropriate choices. You are allowing your children to flounder from situation to situation to make the best guess they can at appropriate, sometimes they get it right and sometimes they don’t but without coaching and feed back, it will be hard for them to learn their lessons.

Perhaps the second type. The parent one who is 180 degrees different from his parents. You are the guy who does everything for your kids and you give them no responsibilities. The parent who can’t hold his child responsible, is so fearful of being disliked, or seen as “mean” or un cool (hey, that sounds just like the parent that came from the authoritative home, very directive, very demanding, structure at any cost, who became the opposite of his parents behavior). Perhaps it is a single parent who feels in competition with the ex to be “the favorite parent”. Congratulations, yours may be the favorite household, because there are no rules, but you can bet you won’t be the respected parent. If you don’t have respect for your position as the parent, teacher, leader, don’t expect your child to respect the position. They will see you as a joke, and manipulate that insecurity to their own demise, then, rightfully blame you for not taking control. I promise you that will be humiliating, and perhaps negatively life altering. You have to honestly recognize your responsibility as the parent. Realize, you don’t like people you can’t respect. You can’t respect people who don’t respect themselves. Don’t be the door mat parent to avoid whining. Learn to manage the whining and in the process you will learn self respect, and teach accountability, self management and responsibility.

It isn’t always easy to overcome our parents parenting. First you have to recognize the propensity for the flip flop (exactly the same or 180 degrees the opposite direction). You have to accept that either extreme is likely unhealthy and that it is possible to create something more in the middle, more suitable for your family, structure with flexibility for changing situations and definitely your own creation to be proud of. Change can be very frightening, but it can be very rewarding when you are able to be accountable, proudly responsible, and able to teach your children the values, morals and skills they need to create their own success. You will proudly watch as your children succeed in their personal growth, gradually learning the skills they need and successfully employing those skills. There is no better feeling I have had then watching my children create, achieve their dreams. They understand their growing sense of personal power to create the life they want with each success. Step up! Learn what you don’t know, teach what you were meant to teach and be the parent your child needs.