Parenting styles

/nvm

Studying parenting styles is a soft science as there's no one set of repeatable strategies that's guaranteed to work the same for every child due to the complexities of brain chemistry and the millions of nuances from person to person.

There's a few general principles that have enough of a correlative relationship that you can establish certain trends with a certain level of 'confidence' (in scientific terms), but nothing that's 100%.

For instance, we know thanks to a 50 year meta-analysis that spanking isn't good. (Queue up the "I was spanked and I turned out fine!" responses lol)

We know that certain approaches to education seem to have a positive impact on larger percentages of children compared to other approaches.

...but there's still no perfect "one size fits all" formula for raising the perfect child.

When my parents divorced I ended up with two very loving parents but one very liberal and one very strict. I kind of feel like I had the best of both worlds, I was given rules and boundaries on one side which taught me their value, and in the other I was able to find where I put my own rules and boundaries, using some direction I’d learned from strict parent.

I was pushed into structured activities by strict parent, far too many to list including guides, scouts, volunteering, music, theatre and sport, and liberal parent let me roam totally free on their time (as long as they knew their basics: who, where, when, what. I was free to make choices but they did want to know I was safe). Never been in trouble with the law, have a good education, never had issues with alcohol, drugs etc, have great reliable friends.

Amusingly enough the only thing strict parent never pushed on me was Christianity. Even when in the discernment stage of ordination, I was given complete freedom there.

I think all the best parenting starts with moderation. You try and start in the middle with the best of everything. Reward and punishment. Rules and freedom. And then is tailored to each child to make it perfect for them.

Specifically to your question, when I was well looked after, but had zero rules except the expectation I wouldn’t break the law, it worked well for me, but by this time I was 11. I knew right and wrong and so I was able to set my own standards. I cut off friends that wanted to go down the drugs path and things. I’d put my own limits in place. For people similar to me I imagine it would work well for them too. For others like my brother, it didn’t because he couldn’t create his own values and was always swayed by peer pressure into things my parents considered unacceptable, and the rules were put in place universally.

Percivale said:

Parents may be strict or permissive, and they may neglect or hover constantly. I have read that people in jail generally had parents who were either very strict or very neglectful. But I’m wondering about parents who are permissive without neglect. If your parents provided and protected you well enough but didn’t enforce many rules or much structure, how did that affect you and what do you wish had been different in your childhood?

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I grew up in a very strict household, which was also very free.

My dad was strict but fair, I only ever had to get whopped a few times when I was little but each time was for something I really shouldn't have been doing(and I never did them again). I feared him but I also loved him.

My mom was extremely lenient on most things so if I ever did something wrong instead of getting punished for real I was just sent to my room or got something taken away.

Looking back on both I would say that it was my mom's lenience that was the worse way of raising a kid. Though I feared my dad I also learned right from wrong and remembered not to do the wrong. My mom's way I just waited until I could leave so I could do it again. My dad was most often working when I was at home so it was my mother's lenience that governed me the majority of time.

As far as religion goes since the time I was a little kid my Dad told me he would teach me the true word of God but it was up to me to decide what was true. We didn't keep any Holidays in the house(since none of them were biblical). We kept the Sabbath day sunset to sunset and my Dad raised me on milk and gave me meat when I was ready. We also had books on almost every religion you could think of from Islam to Hinduism to Taoism to Buddhism and many more. I was also encouraged to read Mein Kampf and the Communist Manifesto. I was encouraged by him to study everything.

So in conclusion I'm more in favor of how the bible says to raise kids, raise them with love but that love must come with a Rod of correction. And raise them with the freedom to decide what is right and true for themselves but also instruct them and raise them in the word of God.