Your Parents Are Secretly Judging Your Parenting Style

I’m always amazed by the fact that most people in my generation grew up with the freedom to watch non-stop television and play non-stop video games. We also inhaled copious amounts of second-hand smoke and drank TaB (remember TaB?). Oh, and if our parents spanked us or sent us to bed without dinner, nobody was calling the authorities. And we all turned out just fine.

While I personally am not a proponent of spanking or blowing smoke in my child’s face, I do think that lots of us are critical of the way in which our parents raised us. But guess what? Our parents often judge us as parents and many think we’re doing a lousy job.

A new study, commissioned by Mature Times in England, surveyed 500 grandparents on their children’s parenting compared to their own and found that a vast majority think that kids today are disrespectful and treated too leniently, reports The Daily Mail. Rather than implementing traditional punishments, modern parents favor softer options such as taking away “screen time” (hey, that works like magic in my house).

Here are some of the most interesting results from the study, as reported by The Daily Mail:

Two-thirds of grandparents believe their grandchildren are not as firmly disciplined as their own children were. Thirty percent said their grandchildren lacked any discipline at all.
One in six grandparents think their offspring have failed as parents and don’t set clear behavioral boundaries. (Ouch!)
Nearly half said they were stricter with their children than their children are with their own offspring. A quarter suggested harsher discipline.
Today’s grandparents were most likely to ground their kids, smack them or send them to their bedroom as punishment.
Forty percent of grandparents said parents want to be seen as a friend rather than an authority figure.

Of course, this is just one study representing a small segment of the (British) population. For every grandparent out there who’s secretly (or not-so-secretly) disappointed with their child’s parenting techniques, I imagine there’s at least one who is so proud of his or her offspring. I know that in my own family, even when I sense that my parents think I’m being too lax, they always make a point of telling me how patient I am as a mother and that I’m doing a great job. And, it doesn’t matter how old we get or how independent we become there’s nothing quite like receiving such a high compliment from your mom and dad.

(Photo: Jupiterimages)