Which parenting style is encouraged most in modern America? Are you wondering about this?
Well, many people are. I'm Nicholeen Peck and I teach parenting, good communication, all over the
world through the lens of self-government and in this video, we're going to be talking about
parenting styles and what you need to know to make sure that you navigate American culture.
Years ago people started asking me to teach parenting because I did therapeutic treatment
care for foster children in my home. In fact, teens all between the ages of 12 and 18 came into my
home and I would help them with multiple different things. Many of them were not neurotypical so they
had processing differences. Things such as ADD, ADHD, OCD, ODD, RAD, FAS, kleptomania, compulsive
lying, bipolar, spectrum issues. You know things like that and usually, they had multiple of their
of those components on their files when we were looking at who was coming and there was trauma too,
right. So, there was a lot happening, and my job because they were older was to help them
hopefully fix some of those issues and prepare them to have normal adult lives and to move them
forward. Now, I've raised four children of my own as well. But what I recognized really early on was
that you can't just intimidate a person to have a change of heart and to start processing
differently and a lot of people do that with their parenting when they're focusing on all
of their discipline and consequences and stuff like that and so instead what I did is I examined
what was going on with all the different parenting and I deliberately made a decision about what type
of parent I wanted to be and not just the words I was gonna say but the way that I was gonna feel
as a parent which actually meant. I had to change me because I was a pretty strong-willed person
that could kind of get in trouble with my words and maybe even say the wrong thing and so I had to
develop a structure for myself. So, here I am minding my own business, parenting these foster
children, and guess what happens? All of a sudden the BBC contacts me, ask me to be on a program,
and then people start asking me to speak at conferences and to events and do trainings
all over the world about parenting. I never knew that I was going to be teaching people parenting
I was just trying to help troubled kids and take care of my own family. But at the end of the day,
some of the most important information that people can ever get are what are those types of parenting
I have to choose between so that they can make a deliberate decision for themselves? This led me to
writing a book called Popular Parenting Methods. The Popular Parenting Methods books talks about
three different types of parenting methods that people use and most people are a combination
between those parenting methods. what they don't recognize is that when they are choosing
one parenting method it can undermine the other moments when they're choosing another parenting
method. The ideal is to have one parenting method that is going to be effective the whole time and
there is only one parenting method that is not manipulative, think about that. It is a deliberate
style of parenting. So, we're definitely going to be talking about that but I want to make sure
that you understand all three types of parenting so that you can make a decision about what type of
parent you think you might be and if you need more information about it be sure to get this
book because it's going to give you more than I can share in this video. So, what are the three
types of parenting? They go by many different names if you study psychology or family development
you're going to hear different names attributed to different styles of parenting and many people will
talk about five styles of parenting sometimes they talk about seven styles of parenting. but
what I recognized after I examined all of it it was that there was really only three styles.
Now, at first, I didn't have names for these three styles of parenting because I felt like that some
of the other styles were just combinations of these other styles in different ways.
So, I just had this mental picture of what these three styles looked like then after I did the
BBC documentary called the world's strictest parents and a man in England wrote an article
about the world's strictest parents called what can we learn from the world's strictest parents?
I finally then got the three names that I now use for those three styles of parenting. Finally,
I said, "Oh, somebody else has seen the three styles of parenting too and he's got names for them". So,
thank you Mark Wanstall wherever you are because I needed those words to describe what I had seen.
So, let's talk about the three types of parenting that I learned from Mr. Wastall's styles article and
that I have now been teaching people all over the world for many many years. So, there is this type
of parenting that we are all kind of afraid of. Now, some people have decided you have to do it
so it's okay. There are even some church people that teach you must do it because there is this
verse in the Bible that says spare the rod. So, you've got to hit the children. You've got to be
aggressive. You've got to show them who's boss. This type of parenting people call it militant, they
call it aggressive type of parenting. This type of parenting is what I would call
the bully fear-based type of parenting. So, this is where one person is the one that instills fear in
everybody else and they change their behavior because of the fear. So, that type of parenting
is not very effective at bringing hearts together. It can be effective at changing behavior
and it can be effective at instilling fear. It can also be very effective at teaching your children
how to be very passive to a bully or how to be the next bully. These are all lessons that are taught
by the bully fear-based parent. The other type of parenting that is very common in our society is
what I call the modern progressive parent. The modern progressive parent is the type of parent
that focuses on being their child's friend. Now, is that good or is that bad? Let's talk about that.
Before we talk about modern progressive parenting and what effects it has on children and on parents
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notification bell because you're not going to want to miss the new videos when they come out. So, let's
talk about modern progressive parenting. What in the world does that mean? Where did that come from?
So, many people use terms like permissive parent, passive parent, in order to describe what I would
call the modern progressive parent. So, the modern progressive parent is this parent that says, "I want
to be my child's friend", now, is that really such a bad thing? I'm going to say yes and no. So, let's
talk about the no first. It's not bad to want to be bonded and to be close to your children.
Of course, every parents want that and parents want their children to listen to them
and to honor what they say and to have a good impact on the lives of their children
so they think that that comes through friendship. Why do they think that comes through friendship?
Well, because there was this guy he was a psychologist his name was Dr. Benjamin Spock
and he actually created a whole new revolution in parenting back in the late 1950s. After world war
ii there were a lot of militant parents, think militant military. What happened in
the 40s that impacted what would happen parenting-wise in the 40s and 50s and 60s? Well,
it was world war ii and a lot of parents being involved in the military also, they were stressed.
Many parents had lost part of their you know partnership. They were now single parents because
dad didn't come home from the war or something like that. Stress levels were high and finances
were tight and people were trying to recover and those stress levels transferred to more angry and
aggressive parenting styles that were coming down at the children. They didn't know how to navigate
everything and keep things calm and so people fell into some bad habits. So, Dr. Benjamin Spock thought
he'd fix the problem by going to the completely other ends of the spectrum. So instead
of being bullied militant he's like just be their friend just be nice and icy let them do whatever
they're going to do and they'll figure it out they're not going to stray too far away from
good people behaviors but he was actually wrong. We ended up getting the hippie generation a
drug-infested, crime-infested, sex-infested, generation of people who left the morality
of their parents upbringing and ended up rebelling against law, against social structure,
against education, against everything. It was this rebellious time and sure some people found a
little bit of extra freedom during that time but they also ended up detaching from their parental
bonds and their family relationships and ended up having more depression and suicide at that time
than there had previously been in generations before. So, interesting. Now, Dr. Benjamin Spock at
the end of his lifetime many people don't know this. He actually said, "You know, I think I might
have made a mistake", oh, well that should have been put in bold letters on street signs everywhere.
Dr. Benjamin Spock might have made a mistake. He did make a mistake. He led parents to be passive
in the lives of their children. So, they didn't do the instructing. They didn't stop the children
from self-destructing like they should have and they ended up creating more family problems, more
aloneness, more depression, for a whole generation of people. This doesn't mean that all parenting
leads to depression. Don't get me wrong there but some of it can. If the bonds are not made correctly
then that leads to psychological problems for parent and child. Now, I can go into greater details
about both those styles of parenting but I do have that book that I showed you a little bit
earlier on. You can definitely look that up. You can find it on Amazon but you can also find it
on my website teachingselfgovernment.com and it is going to be cheaper there just so you know.
Anyway and so you can find more information there about what those types of parenting have maybe
done to your family or to you. You might not have thought you were bully fear-based but there are
certain characteristics that you might be able to identify within yourself that actually are
part of the bully fear-based type of parenting. Now, some people will go back and forth in between
bully fear base and between modern progressive and being the child's friend. So, they think I'll try to
be their friend for as long as I can but if it gets bad enough I gotta nip it right and so then
all of a sudden they become aggressive. They don't know what else to do. So, many people think that the
solution to parenting is somewhere in the middle between these two types of parenting. I'm going to
talk about that solution to parenting but I've got to make sure that I answer the burning question on
everybody's mind who's watching this which is what is the most common type of parenting in America?
The most common style of parenting in America is the modern progressive parenting. That is the
most common type of parenting the parents use and it actually is creating devastating effects.
Children are actually pulling away from their parents more than ever before. So, are they getting
the friendship? They're not. The parents are trying to manipulate outcome by being a child's friend
or permissively letting the child do whatever they want and the child is actually pulling more toward
media, more toward peers, and away from family, it's not working. Boy, could I go into detail there?
But hopefully, that satisfies the curiosity. Now, let's talk about what type of appearance is going
to be effective in this day and age? Because I think that's what people want to know. Of these
modern parenting styles what one is going to work and help our children and our families the most
and the answer to that is the traditional strict type of parenting. Years ago, I was on a tv program
called the world's strictest parents. I was not sure what I was going to think about being called
strict. Who wants to be called strict? Strict seems like angry ornery controlling that kind
of thing and I knew I wasn't strict in that way. But then I looked up the word strict and
when I looked up the word strict in webster's 1828 dictionary it said that a person who was
strict was a person who governed themselves by a certain set of principles. Which means that their
principles and their practice match. Many peoples don't match. They have good principles ah they just
don't know how to make their action match those principles. Well, I had taken a lot of time as a
foster parent to make sure that my principles and my practice matched each other and so I actually
was a strict parent. It didn't mean I was honoring it meant I knew what I was doing and I was
living according to my principles. So, suddenly, I felt okay being on this program called the
world's strictest parent. So, what do I do as a strict parent, a traditional strict parent?
I make sure that I don't just teach my children what they should and shouldn't do to make me happy
or sad but I teach them the principles behind everything. I make sure they get more teaching
more talk time with me and more consistency. So, if I'm going to help them solve the problems I
need to make sure that I'm a consistent teacher. I teach all of this with my teaching self-government
course. I have a parenting course that parents use all over the world not just in America
in order to become more traditional strict. In order to have their principles and their practice
match each other. That teaching self-government parenting course is unlike any other parenting
course that you can find out there because it actually gives you the words to say in the moment
and none of them are manipulative. Every other style of parenting that promises you a quick
fix or a trick is not going to give you a change of heart and will end up just being manipulative.
I don't believe in manipulating children I believe in teaching them and bringing the family's hearts
together. That's what I did as a foster parent and that's what I did for my own children and
I have to say those years raising my children now that they're gone are the sweetest memories
that I have. We don't remember a lot of pain and suffering in our relationships because we had
the skills that we needed to communicate. Now, if you're thinking oh no it's too late for me all
is lost. It's never too late, 17-year-olds came to my home I taught them the skills and principles
of self-government and they had positive outcomes and people all over the world have
been using the skills and principles I teach for years. So, go to teachingselfgovernment.com
click the shopping tab and look at that course. Look at the teaching self-government parenting
course and if you can get yourself to one of my three-day parenting mastery trainings.
I do a few of those a year and that is the way to get personalized hands-on training for me.
So, go to teachingselfgovernment.com now and I will see you in your next training.