This parenting style captures parents who have a high response rate towards their children, without a correspondingly high demand level from the children. While they are always present in the children’s lives and show an abundance of love, they rarely create/enforce boundaries or rules and are not inclined to discipline the children.
It isn’t rare to find kids of permissive parents who struggle with maintaining self-control or good self-esteem, and this can usually be traced back to the paucity of parental guidance and boundaries while growing up. These kids may sadly act entitled or demand their way through life. In addition, they have low expectations of themselves, so they may be poor achievers and engage in risky decision-making/behavioral tendencies.
Permissive parents usually don’t regulate or monitor their kids. As a result, these kids tend to struggle with self-control, leading to many negative outcomes. Some of the major ones include:
Poor academic performance: Permissive parents don’t monitor their kids’ studying habits. Therefore, their kids have less self-discipline. These parents also don’t set a goal for their kids to strive for or demand their kids to perform. As a result, these kids tend to have poor academic performance.
Aggressive and more impulsive: Permissive parents don’t control their kids’ behavior. Therefore, their kids aren’t much aware of the boundaries of acceptable behavior. They also have more behavioral problems and exhibit worse impulse control. When facing stressful situations, they’re more likely to resort to showing aggression.
More prone to substance use and delinquency: Some studies suggest that kids raised by permissive parents are more likely to engage in substance or alcohol use and misconduct.
Poor ability to self-regulate: Emotional regulation isn’t something people are born with. It’s a learned skill. Because permissive parents’ kids are left to regulate their own behavior, emotions, and activities at a young age, they’re likely to have more difficulties self-regulating.
Here’re some strategies parents can utilize to turn things around.
· Parents should create a list of household rules. Children need to clearly understand their parents’ expectations to know how they’re supposed to behave.
· Parents need to be consistent and firm but still loving. They should help the children understand why the rules are important by providing enough explanations and feedback but still ensure that consequences are in place.
· Parents have to ensure that their kids know the penalty of breaking the rules. Guidelines are purposeless unless there’s some kind of consequence for not following them. Losing privileges and time-outs are logical consequences for breaking the rules.
