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Parenting is a tough job but a lot of people are doing it. In fact, currently there are 150 million active parents in the United States. The big question these people face is how to do it? How do you love your children without spoiling them? How do you correct their bad behavior without getting angry? Raising children, it turns out, is as complex as the human beings doing it. There are some general guidelines from psychologists: it's best to be authoritative -- firm but kind -- rather than too permissive or too iron-fisted. But those seeking more specific guidance can choose from a host of offshoots of the traditional parenting methods, some once considered extreme are now increasingly common. Here, we take a look at 10 of them. Some social scientists believe these gender-specific colors and themes can limit a child's imagination and, ultimately, his or her options. You end up with hyper-masculine men and hyper-feminine women who often can't get along, theorizes biologist Lise Eliot, a critic of traditional pink and blue parenting.
The approach, they say, expands both girls' and boys' horizons; girls, for example, can practice competitiveness and assertiveness through activities like remote-control-car racing or rough-and-tumble play. Boys, meanwhile, can play with kitchen sets and dolls to hone nurturing and people skills. Eliot acknowledges that gender-neutral parenting takes effort and can be challenging because we don't live in a gender-free world. Women are still expected to be the primary nurturers. And "feminine-boys" are made fun of in school. The gender-free movement hopes to change all that. Are you that parent who's always hanging outside the classroom, waiting to ask the teacher about your child's latest grade? If so, you might be a "helicopter parent" -- so named due to a tendency to hover and swoop in to prevent any mishap. Helicopter parents are forever monitoring their kids, especially when it comes to academic achievement; they are known to constantly call and text teachers to check on their kids' whereabouts, homework or test scores.
These parents also pass on their anxiety. Erika Krull on the Web site PsychCentral. But defenders say they're not helicopters, a somewhat derogatory tag. They say they're involved, caring parents who want the best for their kids. If you've had enough of stinky diapers, consider getting rid of them and letting your baby go bottomless. Practitioners of elimination communication, also known as diaperless parenting, let babies and toddlers signal when they need to go. Ingrid Bauer, the author who coined the term, says the method promotes bonding and lets children set the pace, removing pressure and punishment from potty training. Not only is ditching diapers green, say diaper-free devotees, but it speeds up training because children never get dependent on them. The idea is that there won't be any because parents catch the output in a potty, according to the Web site of the nonprofit DiaperFreeBaby. Obviously, this requires intensive time and vigilance, so some parents only do diaper-free part time.
The time required also makes diaper free impossible for many working parents, maintains physician and potty training expert T. Berry Brazelton. This term makes it sound like parents should just disown their kids. However, unparenting actually means turning off the auto-parent button -- the one that makes you lecture and issue mandates. For a better outcome, deprogram yourself and guide from the side, advises the movement's leader, professional coach Nathalie Tucker Miller. Too often parents get caught up in the drama of their children's choices, argues Tucker Miller: They respond angrily or with judgment and prohibition, which usually backfires. Of course, this approach is not popular with the tough-love parenting camp, with its position that youngsters are too immature to make good decisions. But some parents spend their time trying to preserve and protect their kids as if they're fragile teacups. These parents worry at the sound of that first sniffle or flip out when their kids so much as scrape themselves.
They are forever consulting doctors and might even monitor their children's daycare and school activities via video. And as their children get older, the fretting doesn't let up -- these parents are always calling their kids or texting them. They push their kids to get into the best colleges and then move nearby. On the minus side, as with helicopter parents, they're not giving their children a chance to find their own way. Huffington Post blogger Ramon Resa. A baby's sleeping, emotional and feeding needs always come first with this approach. Popularized by the pediatrician William Sears and derived from psychological research on parent/child attachment, attachment parenting holds that children fare best when they've bonded early and well with a guardian, usually the mother. Only a few short decades ago, moms used to feel free to send their kids outside in the morning and call them in only for a meal or two and, eventually, bedtime. Cut to the present and rarely does that happen.
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