Permissive parenting is a parenting style adopted by some parents which enable children to be the dominant ones.
Key Facts
- Permissive parenting is the one where parents are super cooperative toward children and children hold the dominance in this relationship.
- Permissive parents are most often lenient and easy-going which also hinders the personal as well as the academic growth of the children.
- Parents who accept every decision of their children without raising any objection are paving the way to make their child a narcissist.
- Maintaining an essential balance is the key to healthy parenting because too much leniency can impact children’s emotional and mental health too.
What is Permissive Parenting?
It is one of the most typical parenting styles, which takes the ultimate authority from parents and lets the parents make every decision of their life.
Also Read: “10 Alarming Signs of Emotionally Unavailable Parents In (2022)”
Here parents are extremely careful about their attitude with the children because they believe that it is going to impact the behavior of their children.
When parents are permissive, they intentionally let go of their authority and become warm and caring. The major concern of the parents over here is to win the confidence of the children and not let them think anything bad about their parents.
Unlike other parents, parents who are permissive have the least bit of demands from their children. They often let their children decide about the matters of their lives. They are open to the decisions of their children so as to be good in the eyes of their children.
Attitude Commonly Noticed In Permissive Parents
Permissive parents are most often:
- Easy Going
Unlike other parents, you don’t have to persuade parents belonging to this category a lot. They are mostly easygoing and do not question their children at all about anything. They believe that children have the due right to take their decisions.
Even if children commit something without their consent, they are the ones who get the least bothered by the activities. Children often feel no need to tell their parents or seek their guidance because of the innate belief that parents are going to fulfill every single wish.
- Lenient
The most distinguishing characteristic of such parents is that they never raise their voice for their children. Though this part of permissive parenting is supported by many parenting experts, it is also a fact that sometimes strictness is compulsory because it helps children to understand their social boundaries.
However, such parents are extremely neglectful of creating boundaries which can infuse some sense in the children. Their leniency is the reason that children are more often dominating them in the private and public sphere.
- Extremely Supportive
Support coming from the parents can do wonders. It is the reason behind the success of children in later part of their life. However, most experts are in favor of guided support. Now, if you are wondering about what this guided support is?
Then let me clear it out for you. It allows parents to support their children as much as they can, but if they find something wrong with the factors upon which their support is needed, they simply say no to it without taking any moment of hesitation because they believe that this thing is not going to work in the long term.
But, parents who are extremely supportive never ever raise their eyes even when the matter is serious. You will always find them blindly supporting the decisions and choices made by their children because of the belief that they want to be friends with their kids.
- Wish Granters
Perhaps, every one of us has wanted at some point in our lives to be granted everything by our parents whatever we have wished for. Logically speaking, our parents never allowed all our wishes to come true but they monitored and saw what we had wished for.
This whole wish-granting process seems unnecessary when we talk about permissive parenting because parents over here do not appear to be abiding by the conventional norms. They rather have standards of their own that allow them to grant every single wish made by their children. They rarely say no to their kids because to them, no means bearing anger and frustration of the kids which they absolutely do not want to bear.
- Less Frequent Communicators
Unlike other parents, permissive parents still have a gap in communication due to their own strategies. For them, the only thing which matters is the approval of their children and once they get it, they don’t feel the need of sharing or exchanging anything else with their children. You will find this kind of attitude very common in the members of the upper-tier.
These parents are always easygoing with their children’s decisions. They have the confidence that children are controlling their lives on their own and they don’t want to intrude in their personal space which keeps them away from communicating with their children quite a lot except when the children have an order to be directed.
- Extravagant
Another characteristic that experts have noticed among such parents is the exhibition of their extravaganza when it comes to their children. For them, the demands of their children matter more than anything else.
This is why they are the ones who never care about money or their financial status when it comes to their children. They are always in favor of abiding by the orders put forth by their children. This is why they mostly spend extravagantly on their children’s demands. These demands often put them in serious financial trials.
If you are still confused about what is the level of the extravaganza depicted by these parents, then allow me to take you back into the cinematic world of “Charlie & The Chocolate Factory”, where the character of Veruca Salt represents the ultimate authority over her father allowing her father to get every single thing which she demands.
Well, now I think most of you remember the character about whom I am talking. That was just a fictional character but in real life, there are parents who are like that. They believe in fulfilling every other wish of their child because to them children’s wish matters more than anything else.
- Reluctant to Impose Rules
Rules are important for every individual. Without rules and regulations, one cannot expect to prosper. Parenting too is bound by rules, however, these rules don’t work in terms of permissive parenting.
As parents over here are extremely careful about managing their children’s happiness. Parents believe that children need to breathe in the open space without any enforcement of rules and regulations in their lives.
This is the reason, you won’t find their children sticking to the rules more often because to these parents, making rules for their kids is not suitable enough. They don’t believe in running their kids’ lives with the help of rules. They believe in giving children their own kind of freedom. So, their kids are brought upon in a rule-free environment.
- Least Expecting
Most of us work super hard because we believe that our parents expect hard work from us. That is the tale of every other person. We all work hard because we want to meet the expectations of our parents. What if parents stop expecting anything from us? They stop becoming too touchy when it comes to our progress.
You are definitely shocked and you must be wondering the reason behind their lack of expectations. No, it is not the belief which helps them to think that you are not worthy of their expectations but they are rather the ones, who are doing that because they adopt permissive parenting.
Parents who are permissive never expect a lot from their children because they believe that children do carry the essence of taking their decisions by themselves. This is why you don’t find their children with a bundle of wishlists tied around them.
The Impact of Permissive Parenting on Children
Permissive parenting is the most lenient side of parenting one can ever expect but at the same time, too much leniency becomes unnecessary for the children as they start taking advantage of this lenient behavior. Many parenting experts have considered different impacts of parenting on the mindsets of children. Here are some of the most noticeable impacts on children’s attitudes.
- Children get selfish
Selfishness is the attitude mostly noticed among children as a consequence of permissive parenting. When children start getting everything without even uttering a single phrase, they eventually become selfish and mean in their daily life because deep down they get narcissistic.
They know that their parents are never going to leave them on their own and are always going to provide for them. This belief makes them want more. They start thinking about their individual choices and do not pay heed to the rules and regulations. They believe that what’s perfect needs to be only there for them. Selfishness and meanness become a part of their lives.
- Academic Failures
When children are not monitored by their parents, it results in a disaster. Especially within academic life, children start losing their focus. Their interests shift and they are no longer concerned about progress in the academic world.
They rather tend to believe that their parents are not going to hold them accountable for the failures they will be encountering. Provided with enormous facilities, children start believing that their academic progress doesn’t count at all for their parents. So, their focus on studies gets disturbed as they divert their attention to ulterior interests.
- Stubbornness
It is natural for an individual that if he/she is provided with all the facilities, he/she naturally starts becoming spoiled because of that. When every other demand of children is being fulfilled by the parents, they naturally start believing that they own it all. This makes the children stubborn. They start getting out of hand because they know that all of their needs are fulfilled. Their stubbornness develops intensely day by day. If they are not given anything at the right time, this makes them frustrated and psychotic.
- Disrespectfulness
When children take the lead over their parents, they automatically get the upper hand. They start taking advantage of the leniency of their parents. Their attitude gets super harsh as they become more and more disrespectful toward their parents.
When parents leave the children to make their own decisions, children want this freedom throughout. If they are ever stopped from making a wrong decision by any of the parents, then the reaction coming from them is extremely excruciating.
Many parents have complained that despite giving all the due freedom and space to the children, the children still don’t respect their parents the way they should be doing. So, the answer is simple, they have straightly turned into beings who lose respect and take their parents’ efforts for granted due to their growing favors.
- Financial Dependence
Children who are never taught to earn any reward or prize all their life, what can you expect from them except failure when they step into the professional market? The reason is too much reliance on the parents for every single thing that their own productivity gets lost somewhere in the past.
They start depending on other resources but never do anything to support themselves. This is indeed the greatest impact of permissive parenting as it snatched self-confidence and long-lasting freedom from the parents. Some people use a ridiculous excuse over here where they explain that their financial dependence on their parents is due to their own financial power.
However, one true fact is that if the children are incompetent enough, nothing can work well. When children haven’t learned anything all their lives, they can’t even run the greatest of the empires being passed on to them.
Conclusion
Permissive parenting is the one where parents express leniency. Though experts suggest that leniency is significant in establishing healthy relationships with children but at the same time, it is essential to maintain some boundaries.
Boundaries enable young children to get disciplined and prepare them for the future. Too much leniency is not a solution to maintaining a healthy relationship with children but the true indication of a healthy relationship is transforming children into a person you would love to see tomorrow.
