In my practice having counseled many families on food and nutrition, I have come to learn that parenting styles dictate the feeding style in the home. What is your parenting style? Take this quiz and get your score at the bottom. Next week I will discuss how these parenting styles positively or negatively impact the way you feed and expose your child to food. Remember, information is power. This is not meant to make you feel bad if the result is not what you desired, but instead give you insight into how to maximize your child’s experience with food. Try and answer the questions on how you really handle things instead of how you think you “should” react. OK, here we go…are you ready?
1. Your pre-teen son is watching a show and as you walk through the room, you notice that the show has questionable content that may not be appropriate for teens. What would you do?
a. Get mad, telling him that he can't watch the show.
b. Go ahead and let him watch it anyway.
c. Tell him that he’s gonna have to change the channel, but you could help her find a more appropriate show.
2. If your daughter hits another girl at school, what would you do?
a. Get mad at your daughter’s actions, and tell the other child to hit him back.
b. Ignore the kids and let them handle it.
c. Tell him not to hit other people, make her apologize, and if this is a second offense, take away one of her privileges.
3. Your son wants to go play basketball with his friends, but you know he hasn’t finished his homework.
a. Yell at him saying he should know better than to ask you.
b. Go ahead and let him go play with hopes he’ll do it later.
c. Help him with his homework to get it done faster so he can enjoy his friends.
4. What do you do if you kids don't listen you?
a. Yell often out of frustration.
b. Shake your head and let it go because you are exhausted.
c. Remind them that they need to do and follow through with having them meet those expectations.
5. You daughter is procrastinating her bedtime by saying that she would like something to eat. What would you do?
a. Make her go to bed hungry because it's her bedtime.
b. Go ahead and let her eat a snack before bed.
c. Give her a healthy snack, but tell her it's the last time she gets a late night snack because she'll need to start eating more at dinner.
6. Your children come along with you to the grocery store and are pointing to everything at the toy area close to the cash register. What do you do?
a. Flat out tell them no that they cannot have anything – this trip is not for them.
b. Buy them one or more items just to prevent a potential scene.
c. Tell them no, but explain that when they save up their money, you'll take them back so that they can purchase whatever they want.
7. What do you do when your child has a tantrum or emotional breakdown?
a. Send him to his room.
b. Give in because you’re tired and you just want him to stop.
c. Wait until he's done with his tantrum and explain to him there are better ways to express his frustration.
8. What do you do if your preschool child wakes up in the middle of the night from a bad dream?
a. Get mad because she woke up and tell her to just go back to bed.
b. Just grab her and pull her into bed with you so you can get back to sleep.
c. Comfort her and try to help her back to sleep into her own bed once she's calmed down.
9. If your child gets breaks a clear rule, what do you do?
a. Yell or spank the child and say nothing because they should know – they broke a well-established rule.
b. Don't do anything.
c. Discipline the child and then explain that there are better choices to make.
10. What do you think the main goal is for parenting and discipline?
a. To get your child to submit and follow rules laid out by you.
b. To keep the peace in the family.
c. To teach your children why rules are important and to help them learn how to make good choices.
Answers & Explanations
Count up your A's, B's, and C's.
If you had more 'A' answers, you are more of an authoritarian parent, which means you attempt to control your children's behaviors. You stress the importance of obedience in regards to authority. Most authoritarian parents rely on punishment.
If you had more 'B' answers, you are more of a permissive parent, which means that you have very little if any control. You let your kids set their own schedules. Most permissive parents do not demand the same type of behavior as the other to parenting types.
If you had more 'C' answers, you are more of an authoritative parent, which means that you believe that both the parent and child have certain rights that are both of equal importance. You tend to set rules and explain them to your children.
Wow!! Liked it.
ReplyDeleteI have also taken a related test. Take the Caring For Toddlers test and find out how good are you at caring for toddlers.
Oh, I like that test! It had many questions relating to food. That test also reminds us how important it is to customized your care based on their development level, i.e., how a child processes the world at a given age. Thanks for the link!
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