Parenting Styles: Finding Balance between Mom and Dad’s Approaches

Balancing your parenting styles is probably the most precious gift that you can give to your child.

Studies say that balanced parenting is the secret to a child’s success, happiness, and good health. It is one of the most crucial tools in raising your child right!

But what is balanced parenting?

Balanced parenting basically means an equal blend of control and discipline along with warmth, love, and nurturing. A child needs a little bit of everything, while they crave love and warmth, they need discipline, routine, and inculcation of the right values. Even if they are not naturally inclined to learn about adopting these practices, these are crucial lessons for life.

In balanced parenting, the parents work out a formula of giving their child unconditional love and support, while setting the expectations clear. Open verbal communications with the child help them to understand and deliver better. It also means establishing a bond of love, faith, and care with the child.

5 Proven Reasons for Balancing Your Parenting Styles

1. Kids feel loved in a balanced home

In the balanced parenting style, children grow up feeling loved and respected. The parents give them the freedom of voice while negotiating with logic and reasoning. As such, the child and parent establish a bond of trust and friendship.

2. There is no gap to create confusion

With balanced parenting, both the parents are on the same page. This leaves no gap which creates confusion in the child’s mind. The rules are set and explained to the child. Making the child understand the importance of a rule increases their likelihood of following the rules.  

3. Stronger Bonds is the key to easy parenting

Having strong bonds with the child and among the parents can make parenting a lot easier. Children have an innate tendency to please their parents but if the child does not feel connected or if the relations are strained, then they are less inclined to comply with your rules.

4. Balanced parenting fosters open communication

According to studies, open and clear communication is the key to a strong parent-child bond. Just telling the child to do or not to do something is not enough. Giving them a clear logic why they do certain things and why certain things are outside the line will help them understand your perspective. Also, when you talk to your child, you open the door for your child to communicate.

Also Read: 7 secret ingredients to a happy marriage

5. Clear expectations set clear goals

In balanced parenting, along with love and care, the parents also communicate their expectancy. This gives the child a clear understanding of what he or she needs to do. This is very crucial in developing discipline, responsibility, hard work, and most importantly goal orientation.

Balancing Your Parenting Styles: Mom Vs Dad

Now, that we know the benefits of balanced parenting, let’s talk about how to achieve that balance. Parenting is undoubtedly one of the toughest jobs, and there is no rule book that can declare the right ways of parenting. As such, it is all about exploring, experimenting, understanding, and fitting into this role.

While, in most households, the mother tends to be nurturing and forgiving, the father takes the role of an authoritarian. In some families, the father tends to nurture and spoil, while the mother holds the shackle. It really doesn’t matter who plays what role; your kid needs both of these approaches to growing up in a balanced environment. The love, care, discipline, and strictness, help your child prepare better for the curveballs of life.

A Mother’s Parenting Style

Have you heard about elephant parenting style?

Amongst the latest trends of parenting is ‘elephant parenting’. It refers to those parents who possess an innate need to nurture, protect and encourage the child right from the first day. These parents also believe in having a more flexible environment that helps the child explore and discover things. 

Most mothers tend to follow this elephant parenting style. They have an innate ability to nurture and tend to the child. They are more tuned into a baby’s specific needs than the father. Mothers are also more likely to verbalize with the children and put their child’s needs over their own.

Elephant parenting can sometimes lead to higher dependency, less disciplined and emotionally demanding children. That’s why it’s important to balance the elephant parenting style with a more strict approach to parenting. 

A Father’s Parenting Style

While mothers naturally follow the elephant parenting pattern, fathers are more likely to follow the tiger parenting pattern. 

In tiger parenting, parents adopt a strict parenting style that focuses on their academic achievements. They tend to focus less on the emotional needs of the child. While tiger parenting can be effective in imbibing discipline in the child, tiger parenting without elephant parenting can lead to low self-esteem in a child. That’s why it is important to adopt a balanced parenting style.

Balancing your Parenting Styles 

No matter what your parenting style is, it is important to blend the different styles to provide your child with a balanced environment. Here are a few tips that will help you create this parenting style –

Negotiate with your partner

Differing opinion among the parents is a very common sight and healthy debate is a good approach. But keep in mind the difference between a debate and an argument. Communicate with your partner, talk out the differences, co-operate and compromise to find out the middle way!

Support your partner’s parenting style

Being different does not always mean being wrong. While you may not always like your partner’s style of parenting, it is important to support them. Undermining your partner’s style of parenting not only creates confusion in the child’s mind but will also cause conflict between the two.

Always involve the stricter parent

When parents adopt different approaches to parenting, the child tends to incline towards the lenient parent. That’s why it’s important to include stricter parents while making any decision. This will help you reach a better conclusion.

Establish your key values

If you are adopting different parenting styles, then it is always important to check that you both want to instill the same values in your child. Having a common objective can help you work as a team which is very important when it comes to parenting.

Reach out for help 

There is no doubt that parenting is tough and balanced parenting is even tougher. Especially when you and your partner come from different backgrounds and upbringings. As such having a conflict of opinions is very common. But if you are engaging in regular conflict, then you need to seek help and meet a family therapist. 

Your Takeaway!

If you are a parent then you know this is the most challenging task. It’s exhausting, it’s frustrating and it’s very demanding. But if you are able to create a balance, divide the chores and respect the different approaches to parenting, then you are doing it right!