Why can’t children have preferences?
Why won’t adults respect a child’s preferences?
Why can adults have preferences and no one bats an eye?
I’m sure you have strong preferences for some things and you won’t budge on them. Do you sneer at a child’s preferences?
The child who is 100% obedient is not socialised. As great as we think it might be to have our children do as we say without question, it isn’t. We don’t want to raise our children so that they don’t question things. That’s “sheep farming,” not parenting.
Pennie Brownlee
Children aren’t treated like people.
Coercion is about control.
I overhear parents with their kids at sports practices and games, restaurants, medical waiting rooms, and parks. I’m often horrified at how parents speak to their children. They don’t talk to their spouses or other adults that way!
I know which of my children prefers broccoli over carrots. I know who doesn’t like pork and black pepper. I know which colors they like. I know their favorite cups and plates.
I respect them.
A child treated with respect won’t have to spend their adulthood learning they are worthy of it.
A. Simeone
No one expects me to eat something I don’t like. No one ridicules or cajoles me to “try just a bite.” No one expects me to wear a yellow shirt, even if it was a gift. I don’t think I look good in yellow. I’m an adult and I won’t tolerate being treated like that. How would I talk down to a child like that?
I listen.
There’s really no such thing as the “voiceless.” There are only the deliberately silenced, or the preferably unheard.
Arundhati Roy
We work together.
Family dynamics can sometimes be difficult with six individual people.
While respect works best from the beginning, when children are very young, it’s not too late to make amends with older kids and teens.
Parenting Styles
Early work by Baldwin and colleagues (Baldwin, Kalhoun, & Breese,
1945) proposed three styles of parenting: democratic, authoritarian, and laissez-faire.
Williams (1958) created the dual axes and Straus (1964) introduced the four quadrants. Shaefer (1965) expanded on the details.
There are Five Parenting Styles based on the Olson Circumplex Model (2011): Balanced, Uninvolved, Permissive, Strict, Overbearing.
Diana Baumrind created a commonly-referenced categorization of three parenting styles in the 1960s and expanded in the 1980s and again recently.
In the early 1980s, Baumrind’s parenting style model based on Hegel was expanded using a two-dimensional framework parental responsiveness and parental demandingness by researchers Eleanor Maccoby and John Martin. They further fleshed out Baumrind’s permissive parenting to create a separate offshoot — uninvolved parenting, also known as neglectful parenting.
- Authoritarian Parenting is defined as the adult gets their needs met at the expense of the child. (Parent gets their way. Strict and harsh.)
- Authoritative Parenting is defined as responsive to the child’s needs while maintaining limits and consistency in enforcing boundaries. Consistency.
- Permissive Parenting is defined as the child gets their needs met at the expense of the parent. (Child gets their way. Parent doesn’t say no.)
- Uninvolved Parenting is defined indifferent to children’s needs and uninvolved in their lives. Neglect.
Baumrind’s (2013) typology has come to include seven parenting styles:
- authoritarian (low responsiveness, high demandingness),
- authoritative (high responsiveness, high demandingness),
- disengaged (low responsiveness, low demandingness),
- permissive (high responsiveness, low demandingness),
- directive (average responsiveness, high demandingness),
- good enough (average responsiveness, average demandingness), and
- democratic (high responsiveness, average demandingness).
Dr. John Gottman performed a detailed laboratory examination of children whose parents interacted with their emotions in various styles. The research identified four “types” of parents that reflected parenting stereotypes we often learn ourselves, or from our peers, as children.
1. The Dismissing Parent disengages, ridicules or curbs all negative emotions, feels uncertainty and fears feeling out of control, uses distraction techniques, feels that emotions are toxic or unhealthy, uses the passage of time as a cure-all replacement for problem solving.
- Effects: Children learn that there is something wrong with them, cannot regulate their emotions, feel that what they are feeling is not appropriate, not right, and abnormal.
2. The Disapproving Parent is similar to the dismissing parent but more negative, judgmental and critical, controlling, manipulative, authoritative, overly concerned with discipline and strangely unconcerned with the meaning of a child’s emotional expression.
- Effects: Similar to the dismissing parenting techniques.
3. The Laissez- Faire Parent is endlessly permissive, offers little to no guidance about problem solving or understanding emotions, does not set any limits on behavior, encourages “riding out” of emotions until they are out of the way and out of sight.
- Effects: Kids can’t concentrate, can’t get along with other others or form friendships, can’t regulate their emotions in a healthy way.
4. The Emotion Coaching Parent is identified by Dr. Gottman but not a common stereotype, perhaps because it isn’t negative, or because when we were kids, playing with kids, they didn’t really understand what made their parents so “good.” This “good” parent is what Dr. Gottman calls The Emotion Coach. When you look back on memories of your own childhood, you may recognize that some of the strategies below were used by your parents when you felt the closest to them – when you felt that they could really relate to you, when you were truly understood.
- Effects: Your child’s mastery of understanding and regulating their emotions will help them to succeed in life in a myriad of different ways – they will be more self-confident, perform better in social and academic situations, and even become physically healthier.
The five essential steps of Emotion Coaching:
- Be aware of your child’s emotion
- Recognize your child’s expression of emotion as a perfect moment for intimacy and teaching
- Listen with empathy and validate your child’s feelings
- Help your child learn to label their emotions with words
- Set limits when you are helping your child to solve problems or deal with upsetting situations appropriately
I like aspects of Balanced, Democratic, or Authoritative, but I want to take it further. Gottman really gets it with his idea “emotion coaching” parents.
Respectful or Positive Parenting can be defined as both child and parent being able to meet their needs in a way that is acceptable to both. While many seem to think this is too permissive or perhaps even neglectful, it’s based on mutual respect with a parent setting healthy boundaries. It is beyond authoritative style by respecting a child’s need emotions as an equally important person.
Parenting styles typically refer to the types of discipline parents hand out to children.
Parenting styles are perhaps easily compared to leadership styles. We’ve all worked for horrible bosses or appreciated good leadership.
Leadership Styles
- Autocratic Leadership relies on coercion, and its style is paternalism, arbitrariness, command, and compliance. The autocratic leader gives orders which must be obeyed by the subordinates. He determines policies for the group without consulting them and does not give detailed information about plans, but simply tells the group what immediate steps they must take.
- Democratic or Participative Leadership is a managerial style that invites input from employees on all or most company decisions. The staff is given pertinent information regarding company issues, and a majority vote determines the course of action the company will take.
- Free-Rein or Laissez-Faire Leadership allows maximum freedom to followers and gives employees a high degree of independence in their operations. A free rein leader completely abdicates his leadership position, to give all responsibility of most of the work entrusted to him to the group which he is supposed to lead, limiting his authority to maintain the contact of the group with persons outside the group.
- Paternalistic Leadership is when the leader assumes that his function is paternal or fatherly. His attitude is that of treating the relationship between the leader and the group as that of a family with the leader as the head of the family. He works to help, guide, protect, and keep his followers happily working together as members of a family. He provides them with good working conditions and employee services.
- Benevolent Leadership is committed to making society better both inside and outside their organizations. Benevolent leaders are servant leaders, approachable and accessible.
Many of us grew up with authoritarian parents and autocratic leadership.
We need to shift the paradigm to respect and benevolence.

What Respectful Parenting is NOT:
- Permissive
- Neglect
- Conditional
- Blind Obedience
- Punishment
- Coercive
- Humiliating
What is Respectful Parenting?
- Empathy
- Validation
- Connection
- Acceptance
- Relationship
- Preferences
- Modeling
It took a lot of work for me to shift my parenting style. Since I had no models to show me the way, I had to work it through by trial and error.
I see how my parenting mistakes affected my eldest child. I see how my harshness hurt my middle girls.
My son never experienced any of that and he flourishes.
What would my girls be like if I had respected them from day 1?
I love this: 15 Habits of Respectful Parents
How I have changed my parenting:
I seldom say no without an explanation. I redirect. I offer alternatives. I explain why something might be a bad idea at this time. I ask questions to help my child with critical thinking.
We don’t make our kids share. They work out how to take turns by themselves.
We don’t force them to say please or thank you. But kids are so empathetic and they remind me to say it!
I don’t force my kids to express affection. This teaches consent.
Every person has preferences and we try to defer to everyone with different tastes, but we also have to all work together for harmony. There’s always something at mealtime that everyone likes.
We discuss courtesy and expectations. We discuss feelings. We teach empathy.
How you tend to your child’s feelings now is how they will do it for themselves later.
Chanelle Sowden
A positive approach seeks both to understand and coach the child while maintaining healthy boundaries.
I don’t desire to break my children’s wills.
Many Christian parenting materials encourage parents to break kids with physical violence and humiliation into blind obedience and this causes many problems later, and the trauma of abuse.
School models encourage teachers to maintain classroom management with shame, humiliation, and threats.
I want authentic relationship with my children. I want my kids to have the freedom to say no, talk back, and question so we can discuss cause and effect.
I am proactive and clearly state my expectations and why. My kids are welcome to politely argue. Sometimes I change my mind or we work for a compromise together.
It’s about give and take. It’s about respect.
I want my kids to learn how to make wise decisions, so they must be able to make poor choices and learn from them.
This doesn’t mean I don’t protect my kids. If they choose not to bring a coat when it’s cold or to wear dressy sandals for a hike, I ask if they think that’s wise and then I toss a coat or extra shoes in the car just in case.
We don’t use punishment as a parenting tool. I would never make writing a punishment. Natural consequences are enough. I use positive reinforcement and guide my kids to develop their own internal motivation and self control.
I use my life experience to guide my kids while allowing them to maintain autonomy.
Screen Positive Parents:
We have no limits on screentime or arbitrary rules about technology and I don’t police my kids. Devices go to the charging station at bedtime. We do turn off the Wi-Fi by midnight so we all sleep better.
Screen positive parenting is a way to celebrate with our kids their love of technology while honoring our concerns.
- Recognize that technologies such as computers, devices, games, and shows are a valuable part of modern life.
- Value the joy and learning and opportunity that screens can bring.
- Honor the rights of children to access this technology so prevalent in society.
- Be critical of the way consumerist society has harnessed media to advertise to children and wishing to protect our children’s rights to be free from marketing.
- Challenge the societal norms and prejudices present in much children’s media (such as kids’ shows being overly male, overly white, overly hetero, and physically normative).
- Understand the vast resources poured into manipulating children to spend more time on screen technology.
Screen Positive Parenting: the Parent Allies Guide to Screentime
Source: Parent Allies
Think about that for a moment. I am not the police. I am a parent.
This is not my job.
I encourage my kids to budget their own time and set their own limits and develop their own self control. Sometimes, they learn the hard way when the teen stays up too late and has to work the next morning.
No one polices me on the computer or tablet and I know I have tasks to complete for a smooth running household and home business.
We discuss inappropriate memes, sites, apps and our kids ages 13-18 have private social media accounts and certain guidelines for their protection.
My kids know what they should do and they do it with few reminders. But as a parent, coach, guide…I do remind them and I try not to nag. I am teaching them executive function.
I am my kids’ partner in learning how to human.
Society would rather see “well behaved” children than bold, vulnerable, honest, open, vibrant, curious, FREE children, because those children grow up knowing their power and free people are dangerous to a society that values compliance over happiness.
Oppressed To Oppressor
Common Parenting Issues
What about hitting?
It’s never ok. I am a pacifist, nonviolent advocate. Hitting is usually about not having the language to express frustration. I help by having a time-in until the child is ready to vent in a healthier way.
What about tantrums?
This is communication. It’s the parent’s job to remain calm. Keep the child safe until the tantrum is over. Be proactive to understand causes and be proactive to prevent the tantrum next time.
What about yelling?
It happens. Apologize and try to remain calmer. Model better behaviors.
What about timeout?
I don’t isolate my kids. We do time-ins where we sit near each other until we’re ready to communicate our big feelings and work through the problem together.
What about rewards? What about chore charts? What about praise?
I don’t offer rewards but model intrinsic motivation. A child knows when she has accomplished something and I share in her joy.

My goal is to have a peaceful, respectful relationship with my kids as they grow into young adults.
It took an awful lot of reading to find alternatives to the way society treats children and expects children to be parented and taught.
I always felt there were better ways than what I experienced as a child and what I learned in teacher training at university and saw in the classroom.
I had to re-parent myself and heal my wounds while attempting to parent my own kids. I’m growing up while my kids are growing up too.
Recommendations:
- Nonviolent Communication: A Language of Life: Life-Changing Tools for Healthy Relationships by Marshall B. Rosenberg
- Escape from Childhood by John Holt
- Parenting for Social Change: Transform Childhood, Transform the World by Teresa Graham Brett
Linking up: Random Musings, April Harris, Create with Joy, Marilyn’s Treats, Anita Ojeda, Grammy’s Grid, Mostly Blogging, LouLou Girls, Welcome Heart, Mary Geisen, InstaEncouragments, Purposeful Faith, Suburbia, Our Three Peas, Life Abundant, Worth Beyond Rubies, Soaring with Him, Ducks in a Row, Girlish Whims, Fluster Buster, Ginger Snap Crafts, Debbie Kitterman, Anchored Abode, Slices of Life, CKK, Life Beyond the Kitchen, Answer is Choco, Simply Sweet Home, Momfessionals, Katherine’s Corner, Grandma’s Ideas, Imparting Grace, Embracing Unexpected, Lyli Dunbar, OMHGW, Fireman’s Wife, CWJ, Being a Wordsmith, Kippi at Home,
I’m not sure I agree with all your points but I do find it terrible to sometimes hear people talking to their children in such a disrepectful fashion! (Especially at sports events and at Walmart!) You wouldn’t talk to a grown-up that way!
I liked when you said a child is “welcome to politely argue,” key word being politely. How do we know each other’s point of view if we don’t express it?
Communication is such an important aspect of any relationship – including parenting. I wish sometimes I could go back and parent my children again. But all I can do is to parent adult children and grandchildren with what I have learned.
Exactly, if people don’t talk to adults that way, why would they speak down to kids?
I agree with a lot of what you say here, but I’m really thrown by the part where you list 4 parenting styles using 3 names that are used in developmental psychology but then substituting Respectful Parenting in place of the usual fourth style: Neglectful. Now, I certainly don’t think you’re a neglectful parent–the reason your list of styles doesn’t shake down that way is that your descriptions of the other styles don’t match the way social scientists define them. Here’s a good description of the 4 styles. They’re not defined by who is “getting their needs met” or “getting their way”; they’re about the expectations parents set and the emotional warmth/personal acceptance in the relationship. What you’re talking about as “respect” is mostly that warmth axis. While being warm with your children and accepting them as individuals, you can be more or less firm in your expectations of them; the firmer end is Authoritative while the weaker end is Permissive. I don’t mean to lecture you, just to explain that because I’m familiar with these terms, it’s confusing to see them used in a way that suggests you either haven’t read about this topic or misunderstood it.
Having been raised by Authoritative parents and trying to be an Authoritative parent myself, I don’t see your approach as being all that different. Every family decides which specific areas require firm boundaries for them and which can be more relaxed, so your unlimited screen time isn’t necessarily out of line, any more so than my NOT bringing extra clothes when my kids insist they don’t need them. I respect that my kids aren’t as bothered by cold or wet clothes as I am, and it’s worked out really well, with a few times I had to respect a kid’s decision to admit he was wrong and go back to get something–a learning experience for him.
Overall I think you’re on the right track, and I really don’t mean to sound critical. Parenting must be a lot harder when you weren’t raised by good role models!
I edited the post to add Neglectful as a parenting style. So sad that our society reflects neglect as a parenting choice because so many adults are dealing with trauma and taking it out on their kids.
I definitely agree that it’s wrong to be overbearing and never allow your children to question or express their own feelings and opinions.
I feel the same way about, wishing I’d have known better parenting skills, with my oldest children. I have 5 and I feel that my youngest 2 had the definite advantage of me being a better parent. Parenting teens for the first time, you most definitely have so much trial and error. Then, I had an 8 yr space between my 4th and 5th child. I feels very much as if she is my “do-over” child lol. I truly like many of your points in this post. We definitely need to allow our children to have a voice. We definitely need to respect that they don’t want things in the specific way you want them, especially when it’s preference. They should be allowed to have a different preference. I’m glad to know someone else who doesn’t have strict screen time rules. I do take precautions and don’t allow her on certain apps or certain social media until she’s older. You’ve given great balanced advice here!
Thanks so much! I’m growing up with my kids is how I’m choosing to see my growth as a parent. I pray to undo the damage and heal every day.
Such an interesting post – so much food for thought here. #anythinggoes
This was very interesting. Thank you for sharing your thoughts. laurensparks.net
Wow! This post is so powerful. So much wisdom here. I had to tell myself an ugly truth recently about how I was parented. My parents dishonored me, disrespected me, and used the very Christian faith they raised me in to manipulate and control me. As a result, we have no relationship and that’s perfectly fine with me. My one remaining parent still tries to engage me in the same authoritarian way he did when I was a child. I will not allow it. No way! Not gonna happen. I’m an adult and you will respect me. As my therapist says and I agree, my parents were monsters to me.
I think it happened to many. I’m so sorry and I pray for your healing. Hugs.
You definitely have some interesting points. I do not agree with some of the parenting styles that we see. I have seen some children so afraid to speak, and it breaks my heart. However, I have also seen some children that have no respect what soever for their parents or anyone else, and that really bothers me. There is a middle ground. I think that is what we should all be striving for. In parenting my three children I have learned that each child is unique and requires their own parenting style in order to grow, mature, and flourish.
So much truth here, Jennifer. Enjoyed learning the different styles of parenting and leadership and what respectful parenting can look like.
I grew up with a parent who was often absent emotionally and uninvolved, yet also used manipulation and control to get want they wanted. This parent has not changed and is still treating us adult kids exactly the same way. It’s sad to say the least. Thanks for the inspirational message to give kids the respect they deserve.
Thank you for sharing so openly and honestly, Jennifer! Your experience will definitely benefit others and I’m so grateful you brought this post to the Hearth and Soul Link Party. Parenting is hard, and you’ve shared some wonderful, thoughtful, helpful advice.