Love or Fear-Based Parenting

Are you parenting from love or fear?

My son wanted to go to a school party. One of those parties where I suspected there wasn’t good (if any) adult supervision. He begged me to go. He insisted that I should trust him and that everything would be fine. On the other hand, I felt like letting him go to the party was likely a big mistake.

The best kind of parenting finds a balance between love and fear.

You see, we all make decisions based on ONE of two underlying emotions: Love or Fear.

This is true about any decision you make in your parenting, whether you are grocery shopping and debating whether to buy the chicken or the boxed pizza. It doesn’t matter. All decisions come down to your own perceptions of how you feel about the choice. Are you acting out of love or fear?

When you make decisions and act out of love, your actions are giving, expansive, open, and honest.

When you make decisions and act out of fear, your actions take, tighten the grip, withhold information, and lie.

Love actions share, let go, and trust. Fear actions hide, squander, and attack.

Love decisions feel expansive and open. Fear decisions feel closed and restrictive.

For example, are you constantly telling your kids no? Are you hovering over your child all day, ensuring they don’t fall, don’t hurt themselves, or don’t make a wrong choice? This is all fear-based parenting. Parenting that is scared to lose something. Parenting is scared to let go because our kids might make mistakes. Parenting is restrictive and can literally suffocate children under the parent’s fears.

Parents work hard for everything they have. It takes a lot of effort to have a family, a house, food on the table, vacation time, money to buy braces, piano lessons, and a new wardrobe for your growing kids every year. Parents work so hard to build their homes and provide for their children that sometimes parents can tip the scales of balance and begin to parent more from a place of fear than love.

Yes, there is a time and place for fear-based parenting. Keeping our children safe is a priority. Boundaries and rules should be made to keep kids safe; however, when those rules go to an extreme and don’t allow your child to make their own choices and learn to live life independently, you have gone too far in your fear-based parenting.

The goal is a balance somewhere in the middle. We want to hold our children close enough to rescue them from danger but not so tight that they feel they don’t have any say in their own life.

When my son wanted to go to that school party, I had a pivotal decision to make. Do I say no because of my fears about what might happen at that party and my son’s decision? Or do I say yes because I want my child to trust him? Both decisions originate from my great love for my child, but one is made out of my fears. The other decision is made from the trust for my son to grow from this experience and allow him to learn how to navigate peer pressure. 

Let me give you another example. Should I buy the chicken that I know is healthier for my family, or should I buy the boxed pizza because I’m afraid I won’t have time to cook sometime this week?  

Examine your choices and ask yourself, Why Am I Making This Choice? Am I Afraid Of Something?

Usually, we are afraid. Most decisions are made out of fear. So if you find that you are a parent making lots of decisions based upon fear, then consider that you may want to parent a little bit more out of love.

Parenting teenagers can be especially fear-based; however, this is when moms and dads need to shift their parenting to be consciously more love/fear balanced. From ages 15-18, it is the parent’s grand opportunity to parent out of love more than fear. How do you ask? Arm your child with the tools they need to make the best decisions possible. Please give them the resources they need to make a difficult decision easy. Ask yourself, I wouldn’t be afraid of my child doing XYZ if they knew _(a piece of knowledge)__ and if they had __(resource)__.   For example, I wouldn’t be afraid for my son to go to that party if I felt comfortable that he knew the consequences of drinking and driving AND had a secret way to get out of a bad situation by calling me with a code word.

Be aware of fear-based parenting. Be mindful of your fears and do your best to confront them head-on by arming your child with the things they need to know, or have so they can prove to you that they can do it. You will be giving your child the gift of growth and trust.

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 But until next time, you got this, parents. I am just here to help.