What’s Your Parenting Style?

photo credit: Phuketian.S Khao Sok national park via photopin (license)

I receive regular emails from Growing Leaders and today’s blog post was so interesting to me that I wanted to share it.

There is much written about the Millennial generation and Generation Z, but this article (and the related video) focuses on the parents and identifies potential parenting styles.  The author said in the beginning of the video:

“I believe we not only have a new generation of kids today (referring to Generation Z), we have a new generation of parents.”

The author identifies four different parenting styles and explains the potential hazards of that style of parenting.

1. The Snowplow Parent
2. The Karaoke Parent
3. The Dry Cleaner Parent
4. The Volcano Parent

If you take the time to read the description of each, you may have a name of a parent you know that fits that description.  There may be times where you see yourself in one or more of those styles.  I don’t believe his desire is to demean parents, but rather help us see how we can continue to be better parents to our kids.

In the second paragraph of the article the author writes, “Most parents I meet want to be a good parent. At times, however, we can’t draw the line between mothering and smothering; fathering and bothering.”

Whether you agree with everything he says or not, I think this raises some interesting food for thought for those of us who are parents.

You can read the article What’s Your Parenting Style to see the first four.  There is a form at the bottom of the article which will take you to a page to read the other two styles (a total of six).

There is a video (about 30 minutes long) that you can watch, but also some video notes if you don’t want to watch the entire video.  He does make some interesting observations about Generation Z which might be helpful to consider.

No one is a perfect parent and all of us are learning “on the job.”  Hopefully you will find some value in what is shared about parenting styles.

You Pick: Your Car or Your Phone

Last night I attended an area all-star game where my daughter was one of the players. The crowd was mostly made up of parents, siblings and friends. At the end of the game, a group of high school students to my right were exiting the stands and one of the teen age girls dropped her phone. There was a sudden silence that seemed to grip that area of the gym as all the students paused to see if the phone was damaged. You could almost hear a collective sigh of relief when she picked up the phone and found no cracks. That little event reminded me of an article I received via email last week.

Tim Elmore cited two different sources that showed the importance of cell phones to adolescents. Now I must admit I have been accused of being overly attached to my phone at times, but I found this information to be interesting.

Here’s some of what he shared:

According to recent Pew Research, adolescents put technology in the same category as air and water. They feel they need it to live their lives. In fact, they would rather give up their pinky finger than their cell phone. I interpret this to mean they use their smart phone far more than they do their smallest finger. Incredible.

Furthermore, a study commissioned by a car-sharing company called Zipcar shows that nearly 40 percent of Millennials believe that losing their phone would be a bigger hardship than losing their automobile. They also believe it would be a greater tragedy (so to speak) than losing access to a desktop, laptop or a TV.

So, what would you give up before you let go of your phone?