If you haven’t heard of fear-based parenting, then you should. Sadly, ignorance of this parenting style doesn’t mean you cannot participate in it yourself.
Parenting is as hard as balancing on a tightrope, except instead of dying if you fall, you could lead your children down a wrong path if you fail. For someone on the tightrope, fear may be the only thing stopping them from making one bad move. So, why shouldn’t that same fear help with raising children?
Fear may be essential in keeping you from making impulsive decisions, but with parenting, you may severely damage your children’s well-being if you choose the fear-based parenting style.
Be Present with Your Children in the Present
Unfortunately, fear-based parenting doesn’t reward you with any time-traveling abilities. Therefore, it’s important to be there for your child when you’re there.
Fear-based parenting gives you the false impression that you can protect children from harm that you feel you weren’t protected from in your childhood.
Likewise, you can’t be a victim of creating “What If” apocalyptic scenarios affect your parenting either as the best parenting styles teach their children how to solve problems rather than outright avoiding them altogether.
Fear is the Lock to the Cage You Built for Yourself
Fear-based parenting only teaches your children how to fear, or even worse, to fear you specifically.
However, it’s not too late to free yourself and your children from fear’s embrace. To keep your fear at bay, you should fight your negative thoughts with positive ones.
And don’t fool yourself. Since fear is natural, you can never truly rid of its influence. Sadly, your fight against fear is life-long and won’t end with a single punch, no matter how strong the impact.
Trauma Grows by Feeding on Itself
Childhood traumas are the basis behind fear-based parenting as you’d want to protect or evade any experiences you feel nobody protected you from.
Wanting to be your children’s hero can blind you, especially when the child you’re trying to save most is yourself. However, your children aren’t clones of you as a child but their own person.
If hurt people hurt people, then healing yourself can heal others as well. So, instead of running from the past, embrace it. History only repeats because people don’t learn from it, therefore, smarten up and you won’t recreate dysfunctional relationships with your children.
The Difference Between Accountability and Blame
One reason we tend to get anxious is because of an underlying belief that we’re somehow at fault. Stemming from self-blame, fear-based parenting can create a sense of powerlessness within children to either take blame for everything or force blame onto others.
Only through accountability and teaching responsibility can children gain more confidence in their own decision-making. Therefore, you must be willing to allow your children to make more choices.
That isn’t to say you should be lenient when it comes to bedtime on a school night, but you should allow your children to have their own thoughts and ideas so they can make the best choices as they grow into adulthood.
Instead of Fear-Based Parenting, Try Love Instead
Fear-based parenting will have you so worried about the things you don’t want, that you stop pursuing what you actually want. Or, even worse, your parenting style is completely influenced by others’ judgment of you.
How others feel shouldn’t be the foundation of your parenting style. Before you can teach your children to be their own people, you must remember to do the same for yourself.
So, what kind of parent do you aspire to be for your children? In your journey of self-discovery, be careful not to force these choices onto your children.
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