Science of Parenting: Major parenting mistakes to avoid

The important thing is to be a ‘good enough’ parent. A ‘good enough’ parent takes care of their child, tries their best, and looks for help when they need it. By becoming a more effective parent, you can work on things to help improve your child’s behaviour. This can be achieved by identifying your own parenting style to see what’s working and what isn’t. A parenting style, or a ‘role’ as it’s sometimes called, is how you habitually respond to a parenting situation. If you find your child’s behaviour isn’t changing (or getting worse), stopping and looking at things more closely can be so helpful. Here are a few common roles that parents often find themselves in—and how you can get out of them.

Over-negotiator: If you allow your child to discuss consequences, boundaries, and rules — often succeeding in getting you to skew the rules in their favour — you might be an over-negotiator. These parents might agree to a lighter consequence after an inappropriate behavior just because the child talks them into it. The over-negotiating parent needs to be firm about their rules, expectations, and consequences. By staying firm and clear, you help your child become accountable for their actions.

Screamer: The parent who ends up screaming and yelling at their child is often acting from deep frustration and exhaustion. While understandable (most parents have been there), the fact is that losing your temper is unlikely to result in positive behavioural changes in your child. If you get drawn into screaming matches, name-calling, or using threats, the message you’re sending to your child is that you are not in control. The screamer parent needs to learn more effective ways to handle their own frustration and annoyance. Because unless you get a handle on your own temper, your child is unlikely to see you as the calm, clear authority they need in order to get their own behaviour in check.

Martyr: This parent never wants to see their child fail or feel distress. You want the road ahead to be as smooth as possible for your child. When you rush in to do things for your child, what you’re actually doing is sending a message that you don’t think they’re capable of handling the situation well on their own. The martyr parent needs to stop working so hard. Allow your child to feel unhappiness or frustration. You can help him or her find ways to manage those feelings.

Perfectionist: The perfectionist parent, instead of seeing everything your child does as great, sees everything their child does as not good enough. Parents stuck in this ineffective parenting style know their kids have great talents, they just need to work harder at them. So why would that be ineffective? Because the perfectionist parent teaches the child that failure is expected from them. If a child can never measure up to the high standards their parents have for them, why should they even try? The perfectionist parent needs to allow some distance between themselves and their child—at least between their expectations and their child’s actual interests. Pressure, scolding and hypercriticism won’t make kids improve. Encouraging your child to reach her goals.