Autonomy-Supportive Parenting Strategies
The Top Ten List Every Parent Needs
My last blog post explains what the heck autonomy-supportive parenting is and why you should care. “Autonomy-supportive parenting” is a mouthful, because science likes to make things complicated, but take heart, this parenting practice ends up capturing common sense and instinct. It happens to also have evidence backing up how and why the more we can practice this approach, the healthier our children are (and also us!). This post starts to answer the question, “but what do I actually do?” My upcoming book will get quite detailed about how to apply these tools across ages and types of problems, but this list gives you the basics. These ten tools work together to give us a framework for approaching parenting in ways that strengthen our relationships and address parenting dilemmas big and small.
Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Back to Basics
When I break autonomy-supportive parenting down into the specific practices, they will likely sound very familiar if you have read any parenting article ever. The difference in this context compared to trendy parenting approaches is that these basic principles and strategies are not wrapped up in scientifically questionable, well-marketed branding. Rooted in a theory about what all humans need for well-being (called Social Determination Theory and backed up by research), autonomy-supportive practices build autonomy, relatedness, and competence in our children. Further, they can be used flexibly within a framework, rather than a prescriptive, “you must do these 10 things all the time to raise an amazing child.”
“I had been using some of these tools naturally, but while researching and writing my book, I have increased both my awareness and intentionality for each and every strategy. ”
1. Taking our child’s perspective: Although taking your child’s perspective seems to be part of most parenting guidance of the moment, think of all the times it is really hard to do. Like every day they are an unreasonable toddler. When they cry at the drop of a hat and you are tired of all the tears. When they leave dirty socks on the kitchen counter — again — taking their perspective likely doesn’t enter your brain (instead: “why can’t you act like a civilized human?”). Starting with curiosity about a frustrating behavior, for example, can help us respond more effectively. Throwing a fit about going to the soccer practice they’ve been excited about all week? The immediate response of “you’ve been wanting to go, why are you acting like this?” will have different effects than “Hmmm, I wonder if they are feeling nervous.” Another bonus is that our kids learn from and copy us, and children with stronger perspective-taking skills show higher social competence and stronger academic performance! Key point: Taking perspective does not mean forgiving and overlooking transgressions just because you understand where they are coming from. But it is part of building the most important parenting muscle you have: empathy.
2. Empathy: Empathy is the main ingredient required for the whole autonomy-supportive recipe to work. In addition to cognitive empathy (perspective-taking), affective empathy expresses emotional understanding, and behavioral empathy involves the act of showing you understand and want to help. If your child is having a strong emotion and feels like you understand them, it goes a long way toward the next step of helping them move through the emotion. When responding to a behavior that needs correcting, whether from a tantruming toddler or rebellious teenager, that correction will work better after empathy.
You would think a child psychologist as a parent would come by this really easily, and I am highly empathic with my children, but not always. There are times it is incredibly difficult, like if one of my children physically hurts another one of my children. So, even though we may take for granted that of course we have empathy for our children, we need to be aware of challenging moments that we really do not. And then ask ourselves and test out: if I show empathy, will it help? When my youngest went through a phase of “I’M NOT GOING TO SCHOOL!” during the rushed morning routine, I learned that when I empathized with his sentiment rather than talk him out of it (“It’s so hard to feel ready for school after having fun all weekend!”), he actually did move through the feeling and went on to get ready for school.
My daughter's reference to British artist, Stik
3. Unconditional love and acceptance: This may sound cheesy and/or like an assumption of being a parent that does not need a paragraph to describe it. But, the critical part that can get glossed over is that we cannot just unconditionally love our children, they need to feel like we do. Also, one defining characteristic of controlling parenting (studied as the opposite of autonomy-supportive) is that love becomes contingent on certain beliefs or behaviors, and can be withdrawn. On a macro scale, this could take the form of a parent rejecting a child who comes out as gay or transgender. On a micro level, this could be punishing a child’s misbehavior by cancelling their birthday party, or giving them the silent treatment. A parent’s acceptance of their child’s autonomous self is the ultimate practice of autonomy-supportive parenting. We do not need to love and accept every behavior, and we do not need to even like every aspect of our child (that is impossible), but a child’s general experience of feeling loved and accepted by their parents could be characterized as the heart of “good” parenting. If you get that down, the rest is gravy.
4. Scaffolding: A concept from child development literature, scaffolding refers to guiding a child’s skill development by starting with their current level, and pushing them (with teaching and support) to the next skill level. I picture it like sharing a ladder with our child in three phases. 1: We stand a rung above them, holding their hand to help pull them to the next rung; 2. They gained the skill to scale higher, but still need some gentle nudges from us below to keep going up; 3. They climb the remainder of the ladder with no assistance, waving at us from up on high with pride. So, if your 8-year-old has never made their own sandwich, you can’t just say “you’re making your own lunch now.” You first teach, do with them, watch them do without help, and then you both have confidence in mastery of this new skill and they are off and running with their independence. We are their guides, nudging them to use skills they have already mastered to push comfort zones in order to build more advanced skills and competence. This is where it’s critical to tune into your child’s readiness: children develop skills at different paces, so just because their older sibling could fall asleep without help at age 5, doesn’t mean they can.
5. Expect independent behaviors: Reflecting the domination of “intensive parenting” over the last 20 years, expecting independence may sound straightforward, but proves harder in practice. Consider how many times we automatically, instinctively rescue our children, and “do for them” what they are capable of doing themselves. From making their school lunches to emailing the teacher when there’s a problem, to reaching out to friends’ parents to help the kids resolve a social conflict. This may be the area we need to develop the most self-awareness and manage our own anxieties to quite deliberately step back, and back off. From waiting those extra few minutes for the toddler to clumsily attempt buttons, to encouraging your teen to directly communicate with the teacher about extra credit possibilities, when we expect their independence, they trust themselves more. When we jump in and cut off attempts at independent behaviors, we convey we do not view them as capable. This can have longstanding effects on a child’s self-concept and self-esteem, as I have seen in my work with some young adults who have little faith in their abilities to independently live life.
6. Flexible language: Across autonomy-supportive parenting journal articles, researchers define flexible language as avoiding “musts” and “shoulds” and minimizing directive language like “clean up your room.” (I’m going to confess right here and now that this sounds really hard, possibly more so the younger child.) Flexible language, in contrast, aligns with the other strategies, conveying more choice and different ways to behave. Instead of the pressuring of “clean up your room right now,” flexible language allows for granting more agency, delivered with respect. I have started to experiment with, “when are you planning to clean your room?” Or “when do you think would be a good time to clean your room before you go to sleep?” Although the behavioral expectation is clear, including a finite time frame, the child has ways to flex their agency within the parent request. Or if there’s not really a choice, like my son’s nightly task of feeding the dog, instead of “feed Tilly,” I say, “Tilly looks hungry!” as a cue for him to initiate remembering rather than feeling directed by me.
7. Offering choices: A child having choices is fundamental to a sense of agency and volition, the core of autonomy. In the field of motivation research, having choices increases internal motivation because it leads to a greater sense of engagement and ownership in an experience. I will share that my two spirited children did not respond well to the traditional way of offering choices in their younger years. If they wanted ice cream for breakfast, and I offered cereal or yogurt, they saw right through it and continued to insist on ice cream. Finessing this morning power struggle took other skills (like lots of patience, redirecting attention and sneaking in the yogurt), but even without choices working, I maintained the limit of no ice cream for breakfast. However, in the marathon of parenting, getting into the habit of offering choices will build this sense of agency over time, even if it does not work every moment. These same children of mine would respond well to choices such as “5 more minutes or 10 more minutes?” to prepare for transitioning to a non-preferred activity. When you integrate the strategy of giving choices even beyond the obvious opportunities, you realize an abundance of ways to approach it across situations, temperaments, and ages.
8. Rationale for rules: Giving children rationales for rules flies in the face of the old-fashioned, “Because I said so.” Even though I may have uttered those words a few times in high-pressured moments, most often in our family we explain our thinking behind the rules. This approach helps children view rules as reasonable rather than part of their oppression by unreasonable parents. As my own parenting has evolved over time, I have recognized how much more I can do this with my kids than I used to. Once I started using it more often, or realizing that’s what I was doing during a disciplinary interaction, it became even clearer how much it helps. If anything, it can diffuse high emotion by shifting into logical thinking (after empathy, of course). When I explained to my pre-teen bordering on some addictive cell phone behavior how these app companies design their product to be addictive, make money off of it, and don’t care how it affects the user, she (quite surprisingly) cooperated with our new cell phone use contract, which we invited her to help develop. (See next tool.)
9. Involve in decision-making and problem-solving: Involvement in decision-making helps build a child’s confidence that their opinion is valuable, what they think matters to you, and that collaborating with a team (the family) can be a positive experience. Think how this can set them up to be the star team player in their future jobs! Our children’s ideas can surprise us with their creativity and ingenuity; these young brains can be quite fresh and sharp compared to our aging ones. Involving our children in decision-making can range from the mundane decisions of daily life, like menu planning, to bigger ones like what to do on a family vacation. Decision-making involvement can also be instrumental in setting up household rules and behavior expectations. When a child helps craft rules around social media use, for example, they become more invested in the rationale for the rules, use important critical thinking and problem-solving skills, and are developing autonomy, competence and confidence in making meaningful decisions, that will serve them well as their decisions become higher and higher stakes as they get older.
10. Align behavior with values: When we get mired in the minute-by-minute interactions with our children, and have days when using these strategies feels overwhelmingly hard, it can help keep us all going to stay focused on our values. First, a self check-in can be refocusing and centering, “Am I parenting by my values right now?” A less fancy way to ask this could be, “Am I being the parent I want to be in this moment; if not, why, and what can I do differently?” For me, one of my parenting struggles is snapping at my children when I’m irritable, and immediately feeling guilty. This guilt communicates that I need to take a moment to examine what is happening, slow myself down, and pivot the interaction in a way that I feel better about it. (“I’m sorry I interrupted. I’m tired so give me a few minutes to take a break, and then I’ll listen.”) I want to be the attentive, supportive mother they can count on, not the negative, critical one (they will get both, but it’s worth working on making the first version happen more).
Second, one of the big picture motivations to use autonomy-supportive parenting is to raise children who behave according to their values. Throughout areas of parenting in daily life, and across ages, keep thinking about how values play a role. The first step is understanding what your child values, which may be different than your values. I have learned that my oldest highly values freedom, so I frame our expectations for her in the context of how freedom requires responsibility. She needs to show us responsibility (doing chores, keeping up with schoolwork) to enjoy the freedom of less supervision around her phone use. Some questions to help guide your thinking: 1. What do you hope your child values in their family relationships, friendships, and romantic relationships? 2. What do you hope they value about their own personal characteristics, including what academics, sports, and other activities may foster? 3. What do you hope they can learn about values through navigating what could be value-minefields, like using social media? Keep values in mind as guiding lights for your own parenting approaches, and as a central driver of dialogue with your children as they learn about the world, life, and themselves.
Non-Identity Parenting
I had been using some of these tools naturally, but while researching and writing my book, I have increased both my awareness and intentionality for each and every strategy. Let’s be honest, it’s not always easy. Depending on how many remote learning hours a day has, a child’s (or my) sleepless night leading into the morning, our child’s behaviors that day, and our own mood, these tools will be more challenging and take more effort. But it’s okay because we are not robots requiring perfection. The more, the better, but “always” is not realistic.
In rebellion against the cultural love of categorizing and labeling parents, I present this as a practice rather than an identity. We can parent with a growth mindset – instead of “I am” or “I am not” an autonomy-supportive parent, “I practice autonomy-supportive parenting each day the best I can.”
**You can pre-order my book Autonomy-Supportive Parenting: Reduce Parental Burnout and Raise Competent, Confident Children on Amazon and Bookshop.