Episode 77: Parenting Styles and Outcomes with Kim Duckworth, Author of Parents, Are You Ready? The Practical Guide to Launching a Successful High School Student

Kim Duckworth is a graduate of Stanford University where she received her BA in Communications Journalism. She was the first woman in her family to attend college. She worked in Sales and Marketing for IBM in Silicon Valley and White Plains, NY for over 10 years. She has called Arizona her home for the last 25 years. Currently, Kim is an independent college admissions coach and member of the National Association for College Admission Counseling. She personally consulted with over 7,500 high school families as the co-worker of Scottsdale Education Counseling (a college preparatory center) for over 12 years.

She's been married 35 years, and has three daughters and three grandchildren. She enjoys hiking, Labrador retrievers, reading, travel, and Telluride, Colorado.

Different types of parents and their parenting style

There is no such thing as a perfect parent. There can be perfect moments if you are lucky but it is hard to be a perfect parent considering that everything is constantly moving. The word parent comes from the Latin root word perry which translates to bring forth. That is the same job for a parent. It can be a very gallant, exhausting job but parents just have to take this bundle of light, sound, furry, intelligence, and curiosities and bring it forth to being the best it can be. That is what parents are tasked with and it is not easy. It is different for every child. There is no diagram to tell us what a child is supposed to look like. It is an always-changing job. Kim’s favorite description of parenting or different parenting styles has been around for a while. It originated from a developmental psychologist who worked with researchers from Stanford and they concluded four different kinds of ways of parenting. The first one is because some homes have two working parents. That is the neglected parents. They don’t give lots of guidance and look at their child and think they are old enough to know what they are doing. They can be a little low responsive and they can be a little in-different in to what is happening in the child’s life. The second style that was very popular for a while, was a more permissive style and much more child-driven. Rules were rarely given to the child and the response to the spouse would be a “whatever you want dear” which works for the spouse but may not work as well with the child. It is all based on the idea of overindulging and avoiding conflict. The third style is an authoritarian, parent-driven style. This consists of very strict rules and punishments. There is only one-way communication and involves the idea of low responsiveness. This was more seen with previous generations of parenting. With this style, some students break. The requirements for the child become so great that they break. The fourth style and the one that works the best is called authoritative parenting. This means that the parent is solving the problems with the child. Some clear values and expectations have been set for the child as well as open communication. Getting the child to talk can be hard at times but it is one of the keys. The parent also needs to keep in mind that the child is listening and watching you. It is important to have the conservation and just like the kids would ask “why” when they were little, the parents need to do the same. Listen to the answers the child is giving which can be channeling sometimes.

How to identify the passions, skills, and strengths of their teenagers, considering they don’t like to communicate with parents?

The start to figure out what your child’s passion, skills, and strengths are just by going out and doing stuff. This starts as they become into their teenage years. This is the idea of exposing them to a lot of different things until you find what it is that makes them happy and that they want to continue doing. Just exposing them to a lot of different opportunities will help the child with that decision process. In doing so, this will also help them understand themselves a little better and the parent will also understand their kids a bit better too. This can be hard but the parent should permit their child to embrace their weirdness. If you give a child permission to love what they want to love, even if it may be a little different, that is when you’ll see the best outcomes. Children look to their parents, there were essentially their first mentors and their leaders. They will see what the parents do which will cause some influence but it is important to have the idea of giving them exposure to other things that will help them find what they are good at or going to be good at.

What does success mean to a Gen Z student?

Most parents would agree that graduating from high school is something you need to do to become a successful student and a vast majority of students nowadays do graduate from high school. That is always the first step. The next step can be different. Some will say going to college regardless of it being a community college or a four-year college because students attend both after graduating high school. Parents want their children to become independent and resilient because the parents know life isn’t always easy. Most importantly, the parents want their children to be happy. Parents also want their children to have as many options or choices available to them. They want their kids no matter what they are doing to be life-expanding rather than life-diminishing. With the idea as a parent, you want your child to have options created for them to create options for themselves.

Contact Kim Duckworth: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kim-duckworth-048aa152

Order Parents, Are You Ready? The Practical Guide to Launching a Successful High School Student: https://parentsareyouready.com/


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