The Untigering Style of Parenting: Parenting Through Partnership

There are several parenting styles that untigering parents should steer clear of:

Authoritarian Parenting: No-Give

Such parents are strict, demanding, inflexible and unresponsive to their child—the archetypal tiger parent. Their goal is compliance, and they rely heavily on power, control, and punishment to achieve it.

For many untigering parents, this parenting style is still the one we default most readily to, and the one we have to strive the hardest to resist.

Permissive Parenting: Giving In

Those with this parenting style are often warm and nurturing, but indulgent toward their child. They are reluctant to give guidance, set limits, and enforce boundaries. Their child’s discomfort makes them uncomfortable. Their child’s resistance makes them uncertain.

Some of us who have been tiger parented adopt this style in reaction to our stifling upbringing. We want to give our children everything that we were deprived of when we were younger. Or, after recognizing the fallout of our authoritarian ways, we swing in the opposite direction.

Such parenting may teach us to be more gentle and respectful towards our children but fails to equip our children with the tools to be gentle and respectful towards others. It often leads to entitled kids and parents who self-sacrifice in unhealthy ways.

Uninvolved Parenting: Giving Up

Uninvolved parents have checked out. Perhaps childhood trauma made it difficult to bond with their own children. Perhaps they feel inadequate to face the challenges of parenting. Whatever the reason, such parents are disconnected, unengaged and unresponsive.

While the “Chinese mother” is seen the classic tiger mom, the stoic and aloof “Chinese father” is an apt portrayal of an uninvolved parent. Gone for long hours at work, or perhaps even gone for long months back in Asia while leaving his “parachute kids” in the States, he has washed his hands clean of the day-to-day affairs of raising his children.

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The untigering style of parenting isn’t defined by having no-give, by giving in, or by giving up.

Instead, it’s characterized by give-and-take.

Untigering: Give-and-Take

Give-and-take is defined in the Cambridge Dictionary as 1) a free exchange of ideas or opinions and 2) the willingness to accept some of another person’s ideas and give up some of your own.

The give-and-take frames the parent-child relationship as one based on partnership rather than on power dynamics. You can’t have a free exchange of ideas unless you value everyone’s voice. You won’t be willing to compromise if you don’t believe the other person’s thoughts are valid.

Untigering families thus desire mutuality instead of monocracy; collaboration instead of control.

But this kind of give-and-take is not a mathematical equation where we try to balance both sides equally. We are not talking about the kind of mutuality where the same expectations are placed upon children and adults alike without regard to development, experience, ability, or privilege.

No.

We are not aiming for an equal partnership. We are aiming for an equitable one.

Equality means everyone is treated the same. But equity means that everyone is given the support and empowerment they need to thrive. Babies are treated with special thought, attention, and tenderness. Teens are given extra compassion as they wrestle with their identity, their changing bodies, and their growing freedom. Parents who carry the mental load of the household are encouraged to take time for self-care. The family functions like a body with many parts, each part treated differently yet appropriately so that the whole body can flourish.

This untigering style of parenting means that we:

• Look for win-win solutions instead of ones that only benefit one party
• Respect our child’s boundaries as well as our own
• Are willing to negotiate, compromise, and be flexible
• Love and care for each other as we look out for each other’s best interests
• Value the thoughts, opinions, and feelings of each individual, not just of those who hold the most power in the family

Now, if your current parenting style doesn’t look anything like this idyllic image of domestic life, that’s okay.

Most days, mine doesn’t either. I can often be found screaming in frustration one moment and throwing my hands up in despair the next.

But I’ve also experienced glimpses of this give-and-take parenting—flashes of what a family based on respectful partnership could look like.

And I’m hopeful…

Hopeful that as long as we keep our eyes on where we want to go, we’ll be headed in the right direction.

I may never arrive, but I know the journey will take me closer to where I want to be.