Helicopter parenting, lawnmower parenting, free-range parenting, tiger parenting, attachment parenting, baby-led, and serenity parenting—the list of descriptive parenting terms is endless. Or here is one of mine: janitorial parenting—letting your children do whatever they desire and you clean up after their mistakes, allowing them to avoid accountability.
We are regularly having new labels and descriptions of parenting thrown out at us. Much of the time, they are characterizations of flaws or destructive leanings in parenting, ones we feel a need to rebuff or defy. Other times, they are leanings that are held out as the ideal and you may be judged if you don’t subscribe to it.
So are parents over-protective and over-involved, or too lenient and uninvolved? Who makes that judgment? What you may criticize as unwarranted, I may deem completely appropriate. What you call excessive, I may call necessary. Or, what you deem uninvolved, I may call confidence or trust in my child. After all, I think we would all agree that there is no clear answers to questions like: How old should a child should be to be left home alone? Or what age should a child have a cell phone or a particular level of freedom
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