What Is ‘Lighthouse Parenting’ And Why Is It Effective?

The other day, my 15-year-old son texted me while en route to a reunion event at his old middle school. He wanted to know which entrance he was supposed to use when he arrived.

I reacted in exactly the same way I always do: I figured out the answer for him and then told him what to do. The invitation to the event, which I had sent him a few days earlier, specified to use the south entrance.

Only afterward did it occur to me that he probably could’ve figured out that one on his own. Instead of telling him which door to use, I might’ve instead texted something teacherly, like “Where do you think you could you find that information?” or even simply “Scroll up.” These responses would’ve pushed him to resolve the issue himself.

This spirit of gentle guidance and noninterference is at the heart of what some people are calling “lighthouse parenting.” You may have seen this described as a new parenting trend — perhaps discussed in the context of others such as “gentle parenting,” “helicopter parenting,” “snowplow parenting” and “dolphin parenting.” This hodgepodge of terms can be overwhelming, and could be seen as making the whole business of raising children more complicated than it needs to be.

But the truth is, these labels are simply descriptors for different parenting behaviours that long predate the trending terms. The lighthouse is a metaphor that some parents find useful when thinking about how they interact with their kids — particularly teens. If I’d thought of a lighthouse when my son texted me, for example, it might’ve changed the way I handled his request.

On a recent broadcast of “CBS Mornings Plus,” economist and parenting author Emily Oster described the parenting style like this: “You’re the lighthouse. You’re guiding them, you’re showing them where the rocks are, but you’re giving them some independence. And it’s something between, you’re driving the boat for them, which is too involved, or you’re just letting them crash into the rocks, which is not recommended.”

A parent who is acting like a lighthouse “points out the dangers in their children’s environments but ultimately lets their child steer their own boat,” psychologist Cara Damiano Goodwin explained to HuffPost.

This is in contrast, she said, to so-called “bulldozer or snowplow parenting, in which parents remove all obstacles/problems in their child’s path, or with helicopter parenting, in which parents are constantly involved and intervening in their children’s lives.” In academic research, Goodwin noted, it is referred to as “autonomy-supportive parenting.”

Examples of this parenting style include “giving your child strategies for remembering their homework, but not bringing it to school for them if they forget,” and “allowing them to figure out a compromise with their sibling on their own, rather than serving as a referee for sibling fights,” Goodwin said.

While a lot of people are currently talking about lighthouse parenting, neither the parenting style it describes nor the phrase itself is new. Dr. Ken Ginsburg, the founder and program director of the Center for Parent and Teen Communication and a professor of paediatrics at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, told HuffPost that as far as he is aware, he’s the first person to have used the term, back in 2014. He finds that it’s a useful metaphor for the balance between control and freedom that parents should aim for with their kids.

“The term ‘lighthouse parenting’ is a metaphor to explain what we know works,” Ginsburg told HuffPost. “What young people need,” he said, is “both to be guided and for us to have appropriate boundaries to keep them safe.”

“We should trust that kids are going to learn to navigate the world on their own, but at the same time, we have to protect them,” Ginsburg continued, adding: “The other thing about the lighthouse … it’s always there. It’s reliable.”

A child might stray, but they can use the lighthouse to reorient themselves. “The metaphor gives everything we’re supposed to do as parents,” Ginsburg said.

While all kids need both guidance and autonomy, teens in particular are eager to navigate the world on their own. Lighthouse parenting describes a way for parents to remain an influential presence in teens’ lives without hindering the independence we want them to achieve.

We need to show them that we have confidence and trust in them so that they can develop self-confidence, Goodwin said. “They also need to be allowed the chance to fail and make mistakes while they are still somewhat supported by their parents,” she continued. “Otherwise, they may fall apart when they fail for the first time as an adult out on their own.”

If a teen doesn’t finish their homework, instead of doing it for them (or hounding them endlessly about it), a parent might stand back, allowing the teen to experience the consequences of missing an assignment — which could motivate them to behave differently next time.

Teens, Ginsburg said, want to know that they are loved. At the same time, “they don’t want people to demand or to dictate,” he said. “They want guides.”

It’s easy for parents to make assumptions about teens based on cultural stereotypes, like that they only care what their friends think and parents no longer have any influence on them, Ginsburg said. And while teens do care about peer approval, it’s a myth that parents no longer matter. We still serve as models for our teens, and they are still watching our every move.

When it comes to screen time, for example, experts say that the best way for parents to curb kids’ use is to limit their own time on phones or other devices. One study even showed that the more parents used their phones in front of their children, the lower kids scored on measures of emotional intelligence, meaning that it was the screen use by parents — not kids — causing more of a problem. As always, our biggest impact on our kids is not what we say, but what we do.

Some scenarios are urgent and call for parents to take immediate action. You wouldn’t let your child get into a car with a drunk driver, for example. But in many other cases, what teens need “is not demands, but guidance, and they need the opportunity to fail, recover and figure it out on their own,” Ginsburg said.

Here are some things that Ginsburg and Goodwin recommended for aspiring lighthouse parents to do — and a few others to avoid:

• Let kids know that you love them.
• Create rules and boundaries that are about safety and that make sense, not random ones that are for your convenience.
• Model positive behaviours and self-care. This may also be a time to reflect on your own experiences as an adolescent. If your parents were demanding authoritarians, for example, your instinct may be to swing the opposite way and not draw boundaries for your kids. You might need to check this impulse to find balance for your family.

• Allow your child to make age-appropriate choices whenever possible, even if it means that they could fail or make a mistake. They might select a birthday gift for a friend or relative, for example.

• Encourage your child to go outside of their comfort zone. This could be something as low-stakes as ordering their own food in a restaurant.

• Let your child experience the “natural consequences” of their choices. If they choose not to wear a coat, then they will feel cold.

• Do not fix their problems for them. Instead, help them to learn problem-solving skills that they can use on their own. If a child is struggling with a class, you can encourage them to speak with their teacher and even role-play the interaction, rather than calling the teacher yourself.

• Do not remove sources of discomfort for them. Instead, teach them coping skills. If a child has social anxiety, avoiding social situations may actually exacerbate their anxiety. Instead, teach them how to take calming breaths and practice what they might say to people. Let them know that you understand this is hard, but that you believe they can do it.