Parenting Types

A few weeks back I was attending a lunch meeting in which the speaker was talking about types of people that we sell to. It reminded me of the Myers-Briggs questionaire that determines your personality type. These ideas about personality types are very helpful when we are dealing with other people whether in a sales relationship, business relationship or family relationship. What is the person like? How do they respond to information? What are their particular needs in whatever the relationship?

This week on the radio show Allison and I discussed John Gottman's 4 types of parents with respect to dealing with emotion with our children. Again this type of information can be useful in understanding how we deal with certain situations surrounding emotions and feelings. (And we don't always deal with feelings and emotions very well due in part to our own upbringing.)

The four categories that Gottman laid out were as follows: The Dismissive Parent, The Disapproving Parent, The Laissez-Faire Parent and The Emotion Coach. Not sure if these can be categorized in a continuum or quadrant format but the main point is that we as parents should be aiming at being emotion coaches for our children.

The Dismissive Parent is basically the parent who dismisses the child's feelings as not important. They do not empathize with the child or assist in understanding what the feeling is and what causes it. This leads to the child being confused about her/his feelings and learning to mask or hide them.

The Disapproving Parent goes a bit farther than merely dismissing the feelings as irrelevant but actually makes the child feel bad about having the feelings at all.

Both of these parents may use words such as “Get over it!” or “Buck up, be a man.”

Sometimes as parents, especially if we are not comfortable with our own feelings, we slide into one of these parent types. If the pattern is consistent then there may be trouble down the road for the child in understanding and dealing with feelings.

I will follow up with Laissez Faire Parents and The Emotion Coach in coming blogs.