'Power parenting' is loving parenting

We don't like the word power, and often for good reason.

Power is something that seems to be more often abused than used. When we think of power politics, the power of money or a powerful personality, we tend to focus on how such power can distort, manipulate, pressure, force, punish, etc.

Yet power is a dynamic in every relationship, and it is a necessary one. Even a relationship among equals implies that we bring equal power to bear, and not that we are all equally powerless.

Sometimes unequal power is actually required in our relationships. A president needs to have more power than his secretary of state and, in our system, the people as a whole ultimately have more power than the president. The employer who pays our salary has to have more power in the company than we do.

A powerful, charismatic leader can inspire us to accomplish things we never thought possible. Power, then, can be used positively as well as negatively.

All of this holds true in the family. We may not think of power as a dynamic in our family life, but it is, and it's a very important one.

Family power also is unequal power, and necessarily so. A family made up of adults and children must have two distinct levels of power, which some family therapists call a hierarchy. Adults — parents — must ultimately be in charge. It is our job, and for good reason. Children are not adults. They do not have the reasoning power, the emotional stability and the life experience to think things through and make decisions the way adults can, or are supposed to be able to.

This changes as children get older. A 17-year-old is usually a lot closer to adult functioning than a 7-year-old, and certainly a lot closer than a 7-month-old, though some parents of adolescents may challenge me on that.

Still, we adults must be in charge as long as it is our job to raise our children. That job will come to an end, and has to if our kids are ever to grow up. But until it does, we need to recognize that parents have, and must use, more power than their children.

Now, obviously, it is not that simple. So let me add a footnote or two about such power in families. Actually, I think that a big part of the struggle in our modern families has to do with power.

For example, the idea of the “democratic” family was popular for a time, with children and adults having equal say. I do strongly believe that children be given as much responsibility as they can handle, and that they be allowed to make a lot of their own decisions. But families are not democracies. Ultimately, parents must choose what decisions children can and cannot make.

Other modern families have even more of a laissez-faire attitude. Everybody takes care of themselves, and does their own thing. Parents exercise little if any power, and for the most part kids just grow up on their own.

The underlying assumption seems to be that things will just naturally work out — which they never do.

And some families are simply pure chaos. Parents are so wrapped up in their own needs and problems, in just surviving, that power is used sporadically, arbitrarily and ineffectively. Children soon challenge such parenting with what little power they have, resulting in constant and destructive conflict.

Finally, a word about the abuse of parental power. The three preceding examples have to do with using too little power, but we parents also can use too much.

Our power must always be used judiciously; just enough to keep our kids headed toward independent adulthood, but not so much that we squash their own growing and necessary sense of power. That can take time, patience and courage.

It often means first helping our children explore options and consequences, then offering some gentle “advice” rather than just dictating decisions.

It even means letting them make some bad decisions now and then, even when we know better. It means not saying “I told you so,” but rather “what can you learn from this?” And this is true not only with teens, but with toddlers too.

Still uncomfortable with the word power? Let me add one final thought: In a family, thoughtful, measured and gentle power is a part of love. Loving parenting, in fact, must be “power parenting.”