Therapy in Indianapolis, Zionsville, and Carmel, IN
Over the many years of my career, there have been many recommendations about how best to parent. They have ranged from those strongly advocating strict discipline to those as strongly touting permissiveness. There are helicopter and tiger parents, who are very closely, perhaps too closely, involved with their children. Now, there is a trend for millennials, raised by helicopter parents, to become "drone" parents. This parental style is also a hovering one but also one of following and responding, rather than directing and dictating the schedule. The pendulum seems to swing back and forth between authoritarian and permissive parental styles.
What is the right method? The answer is that there is not just one right way. There are a variety of right ways. Parents need an array of parenting tools that they can fit to the particular child. These tools also need to be weilded from a place that is authentic to whom the parent is as a person. Parenting needs not to be done mechanically but genuinely. The child does not need to feel like a work product that is being managed. There needs to be a real meeting, a real connection, between parent and child.
Even adult children can be difficult to parent. The balance between your wish to protect and the need to respect their independence can present complications that make relationships difficult.
But easier said than done. If you are concerned that your parenting may not be working well for one or more of your children, I would be glad to try to help. Please CONTACT ME for Relationship Counseling .