Be a parent is not easy. There is no school to teach you how to be a parent. Regular parents can complement each other to overcome challenges in their parenting experience but single parents (sparents) are alone.That is why sparents especially should be SMART in their parenting approach.
Parenting style refers to the combination of strategies that you use to raise your children.
Researchers usually classify parenting styles into 4 categories:
- Authoritarian or Disciplinarian: use strict discipline to raise their children with limited flexibility
- Permissive or Indulgent: : let their children do what they want, and offer limited guidance or direction. They are more like friends than parents
- Uninvolved : give children a lot of freedom and generally stay out of their way, no discipline, no involvement.
- Authoritative : Disciplinary rules are clear and the reasons behind them are explained.Communication is frequent and appropriate to the child’s level of understanding.
There is no size fits all and each child is different from another. I do not think there is ONE parenting style that can help you raise your kids, it is obvious that you need to use them all. Sometimes you just need to get uninvolved to let your kid develop his/her independence, sometimes you need to set strict discipline depending of his/her behavior. It always depends on the situation , on the kid’s personality…The only parenting style that matters for single parents is SMART SPARENTING.
Smart sparenting is the ability to put ideas together, and create solutions to problems.That is all what sparents need to focus on: figure out how to resolve problems or create solutions.It is a dynamic process that should be scale to the complexity of the situation and the personality of the kid.
Smart sparenting is the ultimate go-to strategy to succeed as a single parent.
