Agency in Parenting

Parenting is often a topic of much debate. I have heard many jokes in the past discussing the idea that the ‘secret’ to parenting just doesn’t exist and that trying to be a good parent is really just a hopeless cause. Personally, I have often been very nervous about the possibility of taking on the role of a parent in the future. While I am sure it has its enjoyable moments parenting can be a huge responsibility and the cause of a lot of stress. However, this week in class, we learned some effective ways of parenting. There is still no ‘secret’ that will suddenly make someone a good parent, but there are principles that a parent could strive to follow that can lead to positive outcomes in the lives of children and in the family as a whole.

The model I will talk about comes from a family therapist named Michael Popkin who developed a parenting model he calls ‘active parenting’. This model comes from some of the theories of Alfred Adler, who was a close associate of Sigmund Freud and a pioneer in childhood development.

The primary idea of this model is that parents should focus on building a relationship of mutual respect, love, and obedience through allowing their children to make safe, age-appropriate, choices. Children should be left to make choices and face the natural consequences of their actions, as often this is the best way to prepare them for life in the future. The idea is that our brain is already fitted with the capacity to examine our actions and the consequences of those actions and to developed behavior based of that. Most of the time, behavior learned this way is the most effective, as the child comes to respect the parents for allowing them to choose and not punishing them arbitrarily.

I have seen many instances of parents trying to protect their children from the harms of the world in an extreme fashion, and while the parents may mean well, later in their lives, they will end up hurting their child because they will be unsuspecting of many of the natural consequences of life when they move out.

There are times when parents do need to step in. Specifically, if the action or choice is dangerous, the consequences of that action too far in the future, or when an action harms others.

While parents should step in on these occasions, it is important for them to understand that rather than using rewards or punishments, they should be more focused on using ‘logical consequences’. While rewards and punishments are focused on trying to get a child to act a certain way, logical consequences are focused on the child receiving immediate, less dangerous, feedback on choices they made to which natural consequences might be difficult to see at the moment.

A common example includes a child hitting another child. At the moment, the only natural consequences are the child asserting dominance and the other children most likely becoming fearful. Both of these consequences are most likely going to be possessive to the child in the situation, however in the future assault could lead to dangerous situations or jail. While jail would obviously be an inappropriate consequence for the child in his current state, a good logical consequence would be putting a child in timeout as that would simulate the experience. It is also important the child knows ahead of time what the logical consequences are to his actions.

I have been blessed to have great parents who follow the active parenting model pretty well, and while I have never seen perfect parents, I also notice many parents have many good qualities and genuinely care for their children. I hope that all current and future parents can learn more about the importance and methods of effective parenting and that they can strive to improve.