These days, keeping up with the latest parenting trends can feel like an impossible juggling act. Think helicopter parenting, tiger mothers, and free-range cubs. Each method promises ultimate victory for parents. It’s about resilient, confident and respectful children turning into successful adults. But here’s the thing about parental trends: Parents often tend to be extreme, which can be a problem.
“The trend is a swing of the pendulum, from varying degrees of overprotective parenting to overly permissive parenting,” said Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-director of the center. “The pendulum is swinging toward more child-rearing.” For communication between parents and young people.
What Ginsburg is advocating is not another trend.
It’s a return to “balanced” or, to use a metaphor he coined, “lighthouse parenting,” an approach that hits the middle ground between hovering and completely letting go. Like a steady, unmoving lighthouse, parents show their children the way, empowering them to make their own decisions without steering the ship, while also providing a consistent presence in their children’s lives. We will continue to be a reliable presence.
Ginsburg first explored the concept in his 2015 book, Raising Children as They Grow: Balancing Love and Expectation, Balancing Protection and Trust, but it’s clear that parents can visualize exactly what he means. I came up with the lighthouse metaphor so that I could do that. He co-wrote the book with his twin daughters, who are now 29 years old. His latest book, Lighthouse Parenting: Raising Children with Loving Guidance for Lifelong Bonds, will be published in March 2025 with the American Academy of Pediatrics. .
“Part of it is that you look at the wave and believe that your child is going to be able to ride it, but you prepare them for it,” said Dr. Ginsberg says. with homeless youth.
Professor Ginsburg has spoken at Brigham Young University in the past and will return to Provo, Utah in November to speak at a conference sponsored by BYU and the Public School Partnership for K on “Building Strength in Young People Who Have Endured Hardship.” He is scheduled to give a lecture on “. – 12 principals, administrators, and teacher leaders.
Ginsburg’s “lighthouse parenting” metaphor isn’t new, but he told me he’s been talking about the idea for a decade. The idea has recently gained renewed attention after Russell Shaw, principal of Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., wrote about it. Atlantic concept.
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine, advocates the benefits of a “lighthouse” or “balanced” parenting approach. . |Parent and Youth Communication Center
“I often see overactive parents robbing their children of the confidence that comes from struggling, persevering, and becoming exhausted in the process. This has been true throughout my career. But it is becoming increasingly serious,” Shaw writes.
A subsequent CBC article in Parents and Canada heralded the return of lighthouse parenting. And parenting coach Will Elliott offers an online course called Lighthouse Parenting, which is based on “trust, understanding, and respect.”
Ginsburg emphasizes that lighthouse parenting is also “authoritative” parenting and should be distinguished from “authoritarian” parenting. In short, “this is a return to common sense and what we know works,” he said.
Balance of warmth and rules
As Ginsburg explains, lighthouse parenting is about finding the elusive balance between two essential forces in a child’s life. One is warmth and unconditional love, which means meeting the child’s emotional needs and recognizing the child’s individuality. The other is to provide structure to ensure safety, set boundaries, and teach values. “These are two seemingly opposing forces,” Ginsburg told me. “And you have to get them right to balance things out.”
Many studies have shown that balanced parenting leads to better outcomes for children. For example, a 1991 study and others have demonstrated that a parenting style that combines warmth, support, and high expectations can help protect teens from risky behaviors such as drinking. Similarly, a 1992 study on child development found that students with authoritative parents performed better academically than those raised by authoritarian or permissive parents. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health also showed that balanced parenting has long-term positive effects on teens. Other studies have pointed to a correlation between parental warmth and better child outcomes.
According to the Center for Parent and Youth Communication, which was founded in 2017 to provide science-backed information, scientists use strict rules to examine parenting styles, including whether parents are warm and supportive. Teens are asked to answer survey questions, including whether they closely monitor their teens. Strategies and resources to help parents successfully raise their teens. Researchers also look at factors such as academic performance, drug use, and behavior.
Guide rather than control
So why, in our search for better ways to navigate parenting, do we cling to another buzzword? The reason, Ginsburg says, is because of the fads that have dominated parenting conversations in recent years. This is because many of the approaches have backfired.
“If you hover over a child, you’re pushing them away,” Ginsburg said. At the other end of the spectrum, an overly permissive approach, or trying to be your child’s friend, can foster anxiety and anxiety. “When I think back to my youth, I loved my friends, but I was also afraid of losing them,” Ginsburg said. He says children should not fear losing their parents.
Ginsburg, 62, said his passion for helping teens began as a teenager. At the time, she was 17 and had had a particularly difficult year battling depression, and she was hoping her sensitivities would be welcomed and understood.
“A parent’s love must be as solid as anything in this world and absolutely unconditional,” he said. Parents as solid as a lighthouse aren’t going anywhere. “You can always look back. It’s always a guide for you,” he said.
But parenting begins much earlier than the teenage years, Ginsburg said, and parents can start implementing “lighthouse” parenting strategies early on. Strengthen your family and raise them to be good people. ”
“Parenting begins when you hold your newborn baby,” he said. “We start thinking about striking this balance early on. Lighthouse Parenting really codifies how to do this early on.”
The goal, he told me, is not just to raise children, but to raise “human beings who come together across generations and belong to each other.”
So ultimately “lighthouse parenting” is about building lasting relationships within the family. “If you guide your child with love, the relationship will last forever. That’s my goal – I want to strengthen families.”
For Janine Jeannot, a parent and student coach in Atlanta, Georgia, this “lighthouse” approach harkens back to the 1970s and 1980s, when children relied on their parents for guidance and support. They weren’t our job.” Jeanneau, a developmental psychologist and author of “The Disintegrating Student: Struggling But Smart, Falling Apart, and How To Turn It Around,” has been a lighthouse for the past 10 years. He has advocated for more helicopter parents and fewer helicopter parents.
“Our culture of high-stakes educational outcomes puts pressure on parents to feel responsible for their students’ success,” she told me. She sees this in her stress over her middle school grades and anxiety over college applications whose deadlines are years away. And even parents who are too involved in their children’s lives and want to step back are reluctant to do so.
“I hear from parents who say, “I’m micromanaging my kids too much, and I don’t want to do it, but I’m scared of what will happen if I don’t,”” she says, calling herself a “reformist.” says Jeannot, who is self-confessed. Helicopter mom. ” She advises parents to “relearn” how to value their relationships with their children more than their children’s schoolwork.
The role of the parent gradually evolves from supervision and direction to guidance and advice.
“(Lighthouse Parenting) changes the role of parenting from manager to leader,” she told me. Or, as Shaw wrote in The Atlantic, as a child grows up, the parent’s role must shift from “boss” to “consultant.”
don’t be afraid of words
How can parents help their children feel loved and valued? According to Ginsburg, the key is to express it openly, “Don’t be afraid of words.” please”. Rather than giving empty praise, parents should give genuine affirmation that shows their child that they notice and celebrate their growth. Setting and guiding rules is more effective when done in parallel with these expressions of love.
And that, Ginsberg told me, is the essence of discipline. “Discipline should be something that happens every minute of every day when you are with your children,” he said. And discipline is not about punishing, but about instructing. In fact, the words “discipline” and “disciple” have the same etymology, coming from the Latin word “to learn.”
Ginsburg says Lighthouse Parenting can take the pressure off parents.
Recently, US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy sounded the alarm on the issue of parental anxiety. Almost half of American parents say they feel overwhelmed and stressed. Ginsberg believes Lighthouse Parenting can be an antidote to parental anxiety.
“I don’t think we raise our children to be perfect,” Ginsburg says. “One of the best ways to be a human role model is to be a human being.” He told me that striving to be perfect doesn’t produce perfect children. Rather, it “gives you anxiety.” Watching parents make and recover from mistakes helps children develop emotional strength and resilience.
“I’m really taking it back to basics,” Ginsburg said. “Love, show up, try to be a good person, and show your kids what the journey is like.”
