For a parent, it is difficult to strike a balance between being strict and permissive. Read on to know how to achieve that balance, what it means to be a firm parent, and why it is good to be one
Parenting can be like walking a tightrope, the success of which is defined by the balance maintained. Firm parenting is the very essence of that balance, hinging on being authoritative and not authoritarian. Dr. M. Nithya Poornima, our expert from the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences (NIMHANS), Bengaluru, explains why firm parenting holds the key to raising successful children.
All of us would have used rubber bands for some purpose or the other. So, even as you are reading this, it would be a good idea to get one and try stretching and easing it. Wondering why? The simple rubber band is a wonderful analogy of firm parenting – when it is too tight it hurts, and if it is too loose it won’t be of any use! Firm parenting helps children learn containment and limits, just as an effective rubber band would.
What does firm parenting mean?
Being firm is resolutely enforcing clear and reasonable limits and being kind while doing so.
Being firm is NOT about being harsh.
The science behind firm parenting
Before understanding this, let’s look at a series of interesting studies conducted in the 1960s by Dr. Diana Baumrind, a clinical and developmental psychologist in the USA. During her research, Dr. Baumrind observed that parents could be:
Authoritarian (too tight a rubber band),
Permissive (too lax a rubber band) and
Authoritative (tight enough to hold up and equally, lax enough to stretch).
Those parents identified as being authoritative were observed to combine warmth and emotional responsiveness with reasonable control. They had often modeled caring and self-controlled behavior, which, in turn, allowed children to develop emotion-regulation skills and social skills. Subsequent studies on the subject too proved that children raised with firm parenting can internalize effective principles for emotional and behavioral regulation
The science behind firm parenting is simple. It helps children learn to exercise restraint and understand the extent to which limits can be stretched. It conveys that there are clear, reasonable, and predictable ways to understand how far limits can be stretched and when they will be strictly enforced in a kind and respectful way.
