Hi! I'm Nicholeen Peck. I'm a self-government expert and I teach
parenting and family relationship building all over the world.
In this video, we're going to be talking about "What is permissive parenting?"
What is permissive parenting? Where did it come from? And are you a permissive parent? There are
multiple different styles of parenting? In fact, I have other videos on this channel that talk
about parenting styles. So, those might be videos that you want to check out if you're interested in
some of the other parenting styles. But in this parenting video, we're going to be talking about
permissive parenting. When a parent is permissive then that usually means that they allow the child
to pretty much do whatever they want. They're indulgent. They let the child do whatever feels
good and they focus on being the child's friend. So, where did this idea come from? Well, in recent
history, it came from a man named Dr. Benjamin Spock. He was considered back in the late 50s and
60s to be a parenting expert. He actually was the father of a very rebellious generation of people,
the hippie generation who pushed against all of their parents. So, whether you like hippies or
you don't like hippies or you were a hippie for halloween one time, just recognize that
the characteristic of that generation of children that were raised by parents who wanted to become
their friends instead of their parents was that they rebelled against the family culture and they
rebelled against their parents and the practices that their parents had. Now, you may consider that
good, you may consider it bad. But it definitely was a part of history that changed the course that
we are now on. One thing that you need to know about Dr. Benjamin Spock is as he got close to the
end of his life. He actually said, "I might have made a mistake." Oops! Global mistake. Huge global
mistake. When I was in China, I saw his book still for sale at Chinese book vendors. They are still
for sale in almost every bookstore around the world. That's how big of a movement he made. But
he recognized that maybe promoting this permissive friend type of parenting was actually damaging to
families and not helpful. So, does that mean you can't want to be your child's friend? No.
You absolutely can want to be your child's friend but going after friendship is not the way that you
get and maintain a great friendship with your child. My children are incredibly close to me.
In fact, we are the best of friends. But never did I try to become their friend. Instead,
I tried to be the very best parent that I could be. I maintained my parental authority and I
allowed them to maintain their role as children as well. And there was such a mutual respect that
was created in our relationship that we became the best friends for life. That's how you become
friends with your children. Not by treating them like your neighbor or the person you go
out to lunch with who is a person that you don't necessarily share everything with. So, what are
the characteristics of permissive parenting? Well, one is you indulge. Anything the child wants they
get for the most part so long as you can afford it. So, parents are not necessarily the leaders
in those homes. The children are the ones that are the leaders and the parents are the facilitators,
the managers, the people who give out money who drive children different places. In fact, parents
who are permissive oftentimes feel like they're chauffeurs and clothing coordinators and cooks
and all of those kinds of things. In fact, they think of parenting as a very demeaning
type of a role in their life. But actually, parenting is supposed to feel like leadership,
supposed to feel like teaching, training, bonding. It shouldn't feel like managing. So, if you feel
like managing, it could be that you've fallen into some permissive tendencies. But don't worry, those
don't have to stay. Another characteristic of permissive parenting is a feeling of dysfunction.
In fact, they oftentimes think they have to embrace dysfunction. Oh, well... You know,
no family is perfect and our family is not perfect. And of course we know no people are
perfect. But we should we be accepting and just passing off bad behaviors, contentions as things
we think everybody does in our normal. If so, we're being permissive. We're not correcting the
things that we have the role and the leadership job to correct. So, we're embracing dysfunction
if we're permissive. That's another clue. Another characteristic of permissive parenting is
the parents often abandon children with big decisions that need to be made and they haven't
given them the proper training. Now, I know those parents they are so dedicated. Permissive parents,
they are giving their all. They're driving everywhere signing up for all the classes
and all the little extra programs. And everything that they think extracurricular can benefit their
child so they would never think they're abandoning them. But there is this characteristic that I've
noticed that when there's a problem that needs to be solved, they often just push it off on the
child like, "Well, you solve it. Well, you figure it out. Will you figure out how where the note is
on the piano? Well, you do that. I don't have time to deal with it." Well, why are the parents so
stretched thin? Because they're so busy managing. They're making little things for the pta and all
of these different things instead of focusing in on teaching the child how to solve their problems.
Our children need us to point the direction for how to solve their problems. And the child
ends up feeling quite lonely and abandoned. In fact, they get a lot of overwhelm. I don't know
if you've noticed in our society today but there are children who are experiencing a lot of stress,
anxiety and overwhelm. And that has direct links to the fact that the parents aren't doing
the teaching for how to solve the problems when before the child gets in a situation where they
have a problem that needs to be solved. The next characteristic is permissive parents often allow
their children to pick their morals. Historically, parents presented children with morals. They said
"This is right, this is wrong. This is good, this is bad. This is true, this is false."
Now, govern yourself accordingly to those morals. But modern parents who practice permissive
parenting are saying, "Well, what do you think is right? Well, what do you think is wrong?
Well, do you think that's true?" And there even though they think it's enlightened to talk to
their child in that way, they're not giving the child the direction that they need. Children
crave moral absolutes. They want to know what is right, wrong, good, bad, true, false. And
it is the parents job to give that training. In fact, it gives the child a lot of security
and maturity to have a firm grip on what their morals are. Don't leave it up to the children they
don't have enough life experience to make those calls. It's up to you. Another characteristic
of permissive parenting is all the dialogue relates to the self. Instead of the family. So,
everything is like, "Well, but my child has this genius. My child does this thing. I feel this. I'm
overwhelmed." So, everybody is feeling something and all of those feelings that relate to each of
the selves have to come up to the surface as the most important thing every day. Well, if
you're a manager and a facilitator and everything is about each individual's feelings all the time,
you are never going to have a break. In fact, you are going to feel like you're failing every day.
But what if the family's focus changed? What if it wasn't about how you felt in that minute and how
overwhelmed you were? But what if it was about your bond to the family? What if it was about
your unity with that group called family? What if it was about how your behavior or your decision
related to and impacted the family as a whole? Instead of just being about you. Now, that
doesn't mean that we don't have certain things that are about us that we need to talk about.
We shouldn't be closed off to children talking about how things are affecting them. In fact,
that's really important to have that open kind of discussion. But oftentimes, we cater too much to
the feelings of the self and we forget the family dynamic. And when we do that, we become permissive
and our children oftentimes become entitled. In fact, people who engage in permissive parenting
often find themselves manipulating each other in order to try to get those feelings resolved. So,
as much as they want everything to just be chill and that's why they pick permissive parenting,
they end up starting to manipulate with their emotional needs so then their home becomes about
whose emotional needs take the highest priority in the minute and then the manipulation creates more
dysfunction in the home. Emotions can lead to understanding but they can also lead to
bondage and we've got to be very careful with how that we use those emotions in our relationships.
If you're like me the first time I started studying the different types of parenting,
I realized that I had some permissive tendencies that I was not happy with. In fact, I think I was
socially groomed by society to be a little bit more permissive. And once I recognize
those tendencies then I could do something about them. And that's why I started teaching people
about how to govern themselves, about the type of parenting the style of parenting that leads
to success which is a self-government type of parenting. If you've liked this information about
permissive parenting, I know you're gonna love the next video which is How Does Permissive Parenting
Affect The Child? Click on that video and see how your child or the children that you know
might be affected by permissive parenting that is becoming so popular in our society today.