For Emily and Dan, one of their core family values supporting their parenting style is being different. Embodying their uniqueness as it serves their family context best helps their children understand why they may make different choices from their friend’s parents and why that is OK.

Emily sums up her research about the four core parenting styles. Dan points out the challenges of identifying the parenting styles you’re perpetuating from your childhood just because it feels familiar. He also highlights the need to recognize your ideal parenting style versus your actual parenting style. Identifying and understanding your own parent’s parenting style can also help to identify your own. 

1. Authoritarian: because-I-said-so style parenting, decision-making logic not shared from parent to child, relates to tiger parenting

2. Authoritative: balance between structure and independence, related to lighthouse parenting

3. Permissive: parents act more as a peer to the child, relates to free range and hands-off parenting styles

4. Uninvolved parenting: limited interaction between parent and child

The duo have learned a lot about these styles from parenting books and especially one of their favorite shows, Supernanny, and conclude the survey by trying to identify their own style.

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Episode Outline: 

(00:28) Being different as a family value

(04:50) The Halloween tweet that divided the internet

(10:26) Authoritarian style parenting

(13:54) Authoritative style parenting

(15:46) Permissive style parenting

(21:18) Learning conflict resolution from Supernanny

(25:14) Emily and Dan identify their parenting style

Connect with Dan and Emily: 

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About Dan and Emily: 

We’re Dan and Emily Mall, the parents behind Great Job! We’ve known each other since 5th grade, been together for over twenty years, and have spent the last 12 years raising our two daughters, Sidda and Charlie. We started this space after we noticed a lot of our friends and teachers (and our kids’ friends’ parents) coming to us for advice or to compliment the way our kids sometimes show up in the world. We wanted a way to share our stories of what’s worked and hasn’t for parents and caregivers, who, like us, struggle with raising amazing humans.