Many phrases are used to describe the different types of parents: tiger mom, lawnmower dad, and helicopter or snowplow parent. I never felt that any of them described me until I heard about lighthouse parenting a few years ago.
What is Lighthouse Parenting?
How Lighthouse Parenting Differs from Other Parenting Styles
When I first heard about the characteristics of a lighthouse parent, I finally felt there was a parenting style to describe me. Lighthouse parenting is:
- Balancing care with protection
- Guiding children so they don’t hit the rocks and sink
- Being steadfast, always keeping watch
- Providing warmth and rules
Through the years, I’ve always provided guidance to my kids, using my background in psychology and education to provide warmth and rules while always keeping watch. Now that they’re in college, I can happily say I’ve raised my kids to be people my husband and I want to hang out with. We marvel at what they’re doing as they live their best independent lives in college and know they’re going to continue to do more amazing things out in the world.
Lighthouse Parenting: A How-To Guide
Guiding kids and tweens through their formative years has always been a delicate balancing act. We know parenting is filled both with the joys and the challenges of their growing independence. Today’s parents face unique hurdles: ever-present screens, negative impact of social media, looming threat of climate change, and fears around school violence.
We want our kids to grow to be healthy, strong, resilient, and productive individuals but how? Fortunately Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg has literally written the book on lighthouse parenting!
Interview with Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg about Lighthouse Parenting
Years ago I served as a Mission Partner for the Center for Parent and Teen Communication (CPTC) at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Dr. Ginsburg, the Founding Director of CPTC and regularly spoke to us Mission Partners about how to reframe the narrative surrounding adolescence. From Dr. Ginsburg I learned strategies and skills that helped strengthen my connections to my kids and positioned me to guide them, and students I was teaching at the time, to be their best selves. Dr. Ginsburg always shared the importance of ensuring our young people thrive – not just survive – and now he’s the author of the new Lighthouse Parenting book.
In his book, Dr. Ginsburg offers a practical and compassionate approach to navigating uncertain moments of parenting while also setting the foundation for lifelong relationships. I had the opportunity to interview Dr. Ginsburg about how lighthouse parenting can be a balanced alternative to extreme parenting trends and how it can be used to raise emotionally healthy kids who thrive academically, are resilient, and maintain lifelong connections with their parents.
Tech Savvy Mama (TSM)— Every couple of years there’s a new parenting style that gets a lot of attention. Helicopter parents, free range parenting, and tiger moms have had their moment. Lighthouse Parenting presents something different— an action plan for putting balanced parenting into place. How does this approach differ from past trends?
Dr. Kenneth Ginsburg (Dr. Ginsburg)— Lighthouse parenting isn’t a trend. Trends are temporary fascinations that often react to prior ones–like you mentioned, helicopter parenting arose and in response free-range parenting emerged. Trends are fueled by popular opinion and therefore swing like pendulums. In contrast, lighthouse parenting is based on decades of scientific studies on how to best balance the key elements in parenting: being loving, responding to your child’s needs, and setting clear and fair boundaries for their safety.
TSM— Why do you think the lighthouse is such a powerful metaphor explaining how to raise a child with love and a sense of balance?
Dr. Ginsburg— Like a lighthouse, this kind of parent is a guide for their children–one that is always there, even when it’s hard to see and especially when the waters get choppy.
Lighthouse parents’ love is a landmark that their children, who are always steering their own ships, can nevertheless refer to and rely on for direction and support. The beam of a lighthouse is periodic, unlike a searchlight or a spotlight, and this constant yet dynamic presence encourages a healthy balance between a child’s blossoming sense of independence and grounding sense of security.
The lighthouse metaphor also imparts more concrete guidelines to parents: Send your signals clearly. Be aware of dangers and particularly those that may only be visible to you. Understand that for your child to thrive they must learn how to sail the waves by themselves, and accept you are on the shore. Always extend a safe harbor for them.
TSM— Today’s youth are faced with a host of issues that their parents never had to deal with, from social media and cyberbullying to the fear of school shootings or other disturbing news events. Do you think these factors change how people should parent or are the fundamentals still the same?
Dr. Ginsburg— The fundamentals never change. The best protection for a child or teen is the knowledge that the person who knows them the best–with all their strengths and challenges–loves them. That there will always be someone who will stand by them, support them, and guide them no matter the circumstances. This is the most essential element of parenting.
To this end, parenting centered on these fundamentals cultivates relationships that will last beyond the teen years far into the future. Our children will grow into adults and in addition to guiding them we’ll want to become more interdependent. The key to that is not being controlling, respecting their need to become independent, and serving as a guide. Think of it from their perspective: If someone tries to control you, you want to get away from them. When someone guides you, you want them involved in your life forever.
TSM— Throughout the book, you urge parents to consider their child at the age of 35. Why?
Dr. Ginsburg— When we parent for the adult, we look at success differently than when we parent for the child. As children, we overemphasize their immediate happiness, their academics, and we forget what else matters. When we think about the 35-year-old we’re setting up for success, happiness–for example–takes on a different meaning. Happiness means having a sense of meaning and purpose. It means being able to collaborate, to communicate, and to resolve conflicts with others. Happiness means having resilience, tenacity, humility. Keeping both the 5- and 35-year-old in mind allows us to focus on what matters most across a whole lifetime–and to realize most of this comes into play later. Taking the long view takes some of the pressure off us now.
TSM— It is incredibly hard for parents to see their child of any age struggling. So, why is it so important to let children fail sometimes? And what happens if a parent doesn’t allow it? How much failure is too much, and might it cause a child to lose confidence?
Dr. Ginsburg— We never want our children to fail in a way that puts them in direct danger. You didn’t let your child put their hands on the stove when they were two and you shouldn’t let them get into a car unprepared to drive safely at 16. We have to set limits beyond which we do not allow failure–and then allow experimentation and learning within those limits. Childhood and adolescence are the times to learn who you are and how to recover when you stumble. If we don’t allow our children to stumble, they’re not going to learn how to get back up when they fall.
So now is the time—they’re under your watchful eyes. If you protect them from learning life’s lessons early on, they’re going to learn later when you’re not close by, and the consequences are going to be much higher. We all want our children to thrive–and failure should be seen as an opportunity for growth. We allow failure now so that they learn how to improve, how to recover, and how to make the most of second chances.
TSM— Very few parents can say, “I have an abundance of time, and I’d like to spend it reading another parenting book.” What does Lighthouse Parenting offer that other books about raising kids don’t?
Dr. Ginsburg— In the book I explain how parents can be steady rather than stifling guides for their children, which promotes a successful parent-child relationship that spans every life stage. Lighthouse Parenting is an investment in the future— it offers not only a smoother adolescence, but a mutually reliant, healthy relationship with your adult child far into the future.
Huge thanks to Dr. Ginsburg for taking the time to share his wisdom. Lighthouse Parenting is a book that provides practical, actionable parenting advice and is full of evidence-based strategies. I love that it empowers parents to foster open communication, mutual respect, and clear expectations while nurturing their child’s emotional well-being.
Lighthouse Parenting can be purchased on Amazon and everywhere else books are sold.
I received a copy of Lighthouse Parenting for review. No compensation was received for this post. Amazon affiliate links are included in this post.
