It is the task of a new parent to determine how they will raise their child. For some they are clear from the start based on their own upbringing, while others can feel like they are fumbling through the process without a clear path. For all parents, however, a lot of their choices are tied to their childhood and memories of “when I was a kid.” The idea that a parent’s choice will determine their child’s experiences can be exciting and inspiring or it can be scary and intimidating. If a child brings back magical memories and a feeling of happiness and belonging then we are eager to repeat the patterns in our family legacies. If our childhood was clouded with fear or uncertainty we can become trapped in our desire to avoid repeating the transgressions from our past or we can choose to forget our past and repeat those mistakes. So where do you stand? What path do you choose?
In her book Kids Are Worth It!, Barbara Coloroso describes 3 types of parents based on the parenting styles defined by Diane Baumrind. Coloroso describes the brick-house, the jellyfish and the backbone parents connecting them to Baumrind’s definitions of authoritarian, authoritative, overly permissive and neglectful. Each style has a unique impact on children with the backbone parenting style being considered the healthiest…but here’s the problem; we weren’t all raised by backbone parents. Some of us had jellyfish and some of us had brick-walls. So does this mean that our childhood was unhealthy or harmful…it may…but it may not. There are so many factors that contribute to our childhood experiences in addition to our parents styles, it is up to us to be reflective and take the positives from our childhood and apply them to our parenting styles or remove the negatives. The challenge comes when a negative did not result in an egregious outcome. “My parent’s spanked me,” and “I was allowed to experiment with a, b or c,” may not have created feelings or memories of a destructive path but that doesn’t always mean it was okay.
The task of parenting is not to repeat our past because we didn’t turn out too bad. “The goal is for a youngster to end up believing in decency, and acting-whether anyone is watching or not-in helpful and kind and generous and thoughtful ways.”- James L. Hymes, Jr. A Sensible Approach to Discipline