Permissive Parenting: What It Means, Examples & The 3 Other Parenting Styles

There are many ways to parent your kid that can be unique to your family structure, environment, individual needs, cultural context—and so many more variables. Some theories can simply be chalked up to fads (like the bemoaned helicopter parenting). Others have scientific research to back them up—like the four main parenting styles. 

The four main parenting styles create a framework for how we evaluate and describe child-rearing decisions. But these styles are not stagnant—you can, for the most part, fall into one "type," while still exhibiting behaviors of the others. Or cultural norms can play a role in how these parenting styles are exhibited. What we're saying here is that while these may be distinct and differing styles, there is nuance. 

Permissive parenting is accommodating parenting (sometimes even referred to as indulgent parenting). These parents are highly responsive to their children's needs (not a bad thing) but rarely set expectations or boundaries or push personal responsibility. "These parents are highly sensitive and warm, but they don't feel comfortable with boundaries," says Aliza Pressman, Ph.D., co-founding director and director of clinical programming for the Mount Sinai Parenting Center. "These are like your 'best friend' parents." 

The concept of four distinct parenting styles was coined in the '60s by psychologist Diana Baumrind, who studied preschool-age children and their behaviors. She then compared said behaviors with the interaction with the kids' parents: the adult's disciplinary strategies, how nurturing and caring they were in times of duress, how they communicated together, and expectations of maturity and control.

What she found was four styles, those being authoritative, uninvolved, permissive, and disciplinarian (also known as authoritarian). "What it comes down to is where the parent falls on the grid of sensitivity and expectations," says Pressman. "Sensitivity is about warmth and nurturing your child's needs and emotions; expectations are about instilling responsibility in your child and setting boundaries." 

Changing habits is really just about course-correcting, so you implement more structure and clear expectations for your kids. Essentially, you are creating boundaries within the family unit.

"Secure boundaries set by the parent, not negotiated by the child, reduce anxiety. Rules and routines like meal times, bedtimes, homework time, and screen time—that are set and monitored by the parent—create predictability in a child's life. Predictability reduces uncertainty, and that reduces anxiety," notes author and therapist Krissy Pozatek, MSW. "Parents should not value a child's self-expression over a child's sense of security. For example, when a child tries to negotiate a later bedtime, this comes at a cost of the child's sense of security because it allows the child to feel he or she has more power than the adult."

One easy way to do this for children is by setting up household chores and responsibilities with instructions about when and who should complete them.