Parenting Style Part 3 – Tester

Hey all! Are you ready to learn more about the different parenting styles?!  Now again, we all move through different parent styles at different times of the day and during different activities.  However, it is important for us as parents to be aware of our styles we are more likely to resort to in certain situations and know when we may want to try another approach! Hanen teaches that there are 7 different parenting styles!  

They are:  

  • The Director  
  • The Tester 
  • The Entertainer 
  • The Helper 
  • The Mover 
  • The Watcher 
  • The Tuned-In 

In this blog, we are looking more closely at The Tester Role.  As parents, we want our children to continue to learn through their experiences and we want to know what they are learning.  Oftentimes, if we feel that learning is not happening or we aren’t seeing it, we will start to ask questions to see what they know.  This can lead us to only be asking questions during play, (e.g. “what’s this?”, “what color is the truck?”, “what does the cat say”, “where is the dog”).  When we do this too much, it can feel like we are quizzing the child.  Think about how you felt during quizzes/tests.  Did you feel good during these moments? Quizzes and tests are hard and our kids feel that too.  This will often have the opposite effect and we will see our kids begin to avoid interactions altogether.  We know that children learn best when they are having fun and playing! Does that mean we should not ask any questions? Absolutely not! Just be mindful of how many questions you are asking and make sure that there is still FUN in the play! 

Again, we all flow through all of the different styles during different times of the day, but it’s good to be aware of WHY we are doing what we are doing! Stay tuned for the next few blogs to find out more about the next style and what the outcomes can be!  We can all learn a little something about ourselves and how we can better help our kids! 

Let us know if you have any questions about these styles or how we can help learn more about Hanen! 

~Amber