Experts say most parents are too lenient with their kids. But some fall into the opposite camp.
16 signs you're too strict with your kids
If this is you, it may be time to change your discipline style.
If your 4-year-old gets sassy at the dinner table, do you wash her mouth out with soap, give her a time-out, or take away a prized position? What about your fifth grader who is not doing well in school and refuses to do his homework -- do you take away his television or video privileges? And what do you do when your teen starts missing curfew?
Discipline dilemmas plague all parents. How can you tell if you are taking your discipline techniques too far or not far enough?
That classic parenting dilemma is at the heart of controversy about Amy Chua's memoir, The Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother.
In the book, Chua calls her eldest daughter “garbage” for being disrespectful in front of guests, throws away a homemade birthday card because it wasn’t up to snuff, bans sleepovers, and refuses to accept anything other than straight A’s from her two daughters.
That's left many parents wondering if they are too strict, or perhaps too lenient, with their own children -- and what effect it will have on their children when they grow up.
“In America, we tend not to be strict enough and everyone wants to be friends with kids,” says Elizabeth J. Short, PhD, a psychology professor and the associate director of the Schubert Center at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland.
But being too strict is risky because it could undermine the kids.
“They are eager to please their parents and worried about parental approval, so you end up with kids that are anxious and indecisive,” Short says. “Or sometimes they know there is no way they can hit the bar you have set, so they don’t even try.”
Here are 16 signs that you are too strict with your kids, and what you can do about it.
1. You set too many rules.
“It is a sign that you are too strict if you set so many rules that you can’t possibly enforce them all,” says Nancy Darling, PhD, a psychology professor at Oberlin College in Oberlin, Ohio. Instead, set fewer rules and reinforce them very consistently. “Follow-through is really important," Darling says.
2.Your threats are over the top.
“Saying ‘I am going to destroy all your toys’ or ‘throw you out of the house’ won’t work because if your kid says ‘fine’, all you can do is back down,” Darling says. “What you have done is make an empty threat, and taught your child to misbehave,” she says. “It’s a problem when you can’t back down and know that you have made a mistake because you don’t even believe in what you are doing anymore.”
3.Your rules overstep your parental boundaries.
“Parents can and should set rules about how a child does in school, treats other people, and safety issues,” Darling says. Rules about safety and moral issues are OK, but rules about personal issues may not be appropriate, she says.
It is not always so black and white, because parents and kids don't always agree about which issues are personal and which are related to safety or morals. “Sometimes what the parents say is about safety or morality, kids say is personal,” Darling says. For instance, music with violent or demeaning lyrics may strike parents as something to set rules about to avoid bad influences, but their teens may say it's just their personal taste.
4.Your love is conditional (or your words sound that way).
“Say, ‘I always love you, but I expect you to behave in this way' or, 'I know you can do better,'” Darling says. "Don’t say, ‘You are garbage if you don’t behave in this way.'" The latter is attacking your child’s core.
5.You don’t watch your words.
It’s not just how you say it; it is what you say. Even if your tone is measured, your words matter.
“Calm voices can say humble things,” Darling says. “Content is more important than the way it is said."
6.You don’t put in the time.
When you do ask your child to do something difficult, work alongside them instead of ordering them to do it. “Good parenting is about putting the time in,” Darling says.
7.You are always the cop, nag, monitor, or reminder.
If these are the mainstays of your relationship to the exclusion of many other things that one could and should do as a parent, you may be too strict,” says Ron Taffel, PhD, a New York-based child psychologist and the author of several books on parenting, including Childhood Unbound.
8.Your child leaves you out.
If your child talks to you less and less about the things that matter, this could be a sign that you are too strict,” Taffel says. “You can win the battle, but lose the war. ... You can get your child to do things that you like them to do, but they are not opening up to you about the things that make them anxious or uneasy.”
9.Your children don’t bring their friends over anymore.
“Kids want rules and all kids will gravitate to a house with rules, but if you spend your time reminding children about the rules, criticizing your child in front of other kids, and asking too many probing questions, your kids may stop bringing their friends by,” Taffel says. “If children do ask for return play dates, and other kids talk to you and approach you, you have made your house a home that kids want to be in.”
10.Your child is seen, not heard.
"In the 21st century -- with kids Twittering, tweeting and Facebooking -- they expect to be heard,” Taffel says. “You are too strict if you don’t give kids two or three minutes in the spotlight a day to state their opinion,” he says. “You don’t have to agree with them or do what they are saying, but you should allow them the time to say it.”
11. Your child is all work and no play.
“Kids need comfort time and downtime to synthesize what they have learned,” Taffel says. “If they are filled with skills, knowledge, and information that they can’t use and are just learning for the sake of learning, their brains end up like sponges absorbing things, but they have no idea what it all means."
12.You are the only one.
“Find out what other parents are doing,” Taffel says. “When no other parents are doing the same exact thing as you such as not allowing your children to go online even with parental supervision, you may be too strict."
13. You forbid anything.
“You don’t encourage something, but you also don’t forbid it,” Short says. "Say, ‘I'd rather you didn’t do this for these reasons, but if you choose to do it anyway, I may keep a closer watch on you because of my concerns.’”
14. The rules are the rules, no questions asked.
“You have to have rules in place, so your children know they can be broken,” Short says. “There have to be clear, consistent rules because it helps with predictability and expectations, but there also needs to be some wiggle room in special situations.” For example, if your child has a midnight curfew but the designated driver is drunk, they need to feel comfortable phoning home to ask for leniency, she says.
15. If you are authoritarian, not authoritative.
There’s a difference, Short says. Authoritative parents set clear expectations and can be hard on their kids, but they do it out of warmness and concern for a child’s betterment whereas authoritarian parents say "It’s my way or the highway." Authoritarian parents are "controlling and not warm," Strong says. "An authoritative parent is age-appropriately controlling and also warm."
16. You are as cold as ice.
“Nobody cares if parents are tough as long as they are warm,” Short says. “It’s when you are tough and cold that is really the problem."