Parenting. Everyone’s got an opinion. But which way is the right way?
Ally Langdon and Australian parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson team up with ten brave sets of parents with very different parenting styles, putting their methods to the ultimate test in the raw and confronting new series, Parental Guidance.
In search of Australia’s best parenting style, opinionated parents with diverse parenting techniques will take turns assessing each other’s style through a series of the toughest challenges ever attempted. They will confront methods that divide opinion, cause spirited debate and will even be uncomfortable for some.
From helicopter parents to tiger parents, free-range and routine parents to extreme authoritarians, they will all show how they raise their families while trying to influence everyone else that their parenting style is best.
Do you smack your child? Would your child go off with a stranger? How do you deal with discipline? Do you let your child run free? Every Australian parent will be comparing and asking whether their methods are right, and what sort of parent they are.
Parental Guidance takes us behind the closed family doors of parenthood, and how we ourselves were parented, to find out how to do it right, right now? When it comes to modern-day parenting, is anyone really nailing it?
MEET THE FAMILIES
GROUP A
Parenting style: Strict
Parents: Andrew (39) and Miriam (41)
Children: Luke (12), Grace (10), Tim (5)
Hometown: NSW
Andrew is a Christian pastor. Miriam works part-time and is the primary home keeper. Andrew and Miriam and their children have strong faith and enjoy holding traditional gender roles in the home and in life. They are a parent-led household.
Andrew and Miriam grew up happily in the country (Armidale, NSW) with strict parents, the parenting style they have continued with their own family.
Andrew and Miriam’s Strict parenting style:
- They believe their parenting fundamentals are unconditional love, prayer and consistency.
- The family spend a lot of time together doing simple things like bike riding, camping and playing board games.
- They believe in natural consequences – for example, if the kids leave their dirty clothes on the floor then they will assist with the laundry.
- They believe their children have all the freedom they need; freedoms are taken from them when they misbehave.
- They don’t believe in co-sleeping with their children.
- They believe in smacking with a wooden spoon as a last resort after multiple warnings. For them it’s about immediate correction and learning.
Parenting style: Nature
Parents: Liadhan (45) and Richard (67)
Children: Miriam (12), Hannah (11), Esther (9), Eva (7), Danny (5)
Liadhan and Richard have five children together. Liadhan grew up in Adelaide and has two adult children from a previous relationship. Richard is a former teacher who emigrated to Australia from England 40 years ago and has four adult children from a previous relationship.
They both parented their children who are now adults in a strict style and are now against strict parenting, so they practise the nature parenting style. Liadhan home-birthed all five of their children and is a voracious reader of philosophy on parenting.
Liadhan and Richard’s Nature parenting style:
- They travel around Australia with the family, however during COVID/border closures they settled on a friend’s farm outside Adelaide living in two large tents, one a living area, the other where all seven of them sleep. They wake up with the sunrise and go to sleep when the sun sets.
- Their children do natural learning (ie. un-schooling) and Richard believes a parent’s role in learning is to stay out of the way. He does play-based learning with them – chess, books, exploring nature, climbing tress – and believes the single greatest thing he can offer as a parent is his time. Richard retired five years ago to spend more time with his family.
- They are adamant that children should feel “intrinsic motivation” to do chores, learning, etc, rather than being told what to do by parents/adults (extrinsic motivation), and don’t reward or punish.
- They don’t applaud or praise children for doing well, believing their achievements should be their own.
- They are big believers in giving their kids their own consent.
Parenting style: Attachment
Parents: Lara (42) and Andrew (39)
Children: Raphael (7), Chaya (5)
Hometown: VIC
Lara is a stay-at-home mum, a former dancer, dance journalist and drama teacher. Andrew is a performing arts physio, and they’ve been married for 15 years.
Their parenting style is attachment, and they raise their children using the circle of security. They play with the kids constantly and particularly love to perform with them. They indulge their kids’ creativity wherever possible.
Lara and Andrew’s Attachment parenting style:
- They believe in addressing emotion first, behaviour second.
- They are proud of the fact that they have reduced their children’s full-blown tantrums to 30 seconds. This is not just about managing the kids’ stress, but also the parents’. Andrew talks about how he must check his own emotions, which he calls “shark music”, before relating to the emotional needs of the children.
- They know it’s a very time-consuming approach to raising children, but they want to put in the work and raise teenagers who like them.
- Both want to share what they have learnt, as they want “everyone to have a peaceful home”.
- Discipline: anti-smacking. They won’t smack their kids as they don’t want an environment of fear.
- They never yell, and hate seeing a child being yelled at and feelings not being attended to or dismissed.
Parenting style: Routine
Parents: Brett (50) and Tony (49)
Children: Ajay (9), Gyan (9), Taz (9), Jagan (9)
Hometown: VIC
Brett and Tony have two sets of twins who live by their routine parenting style.
Brett is a primary school teacher and Tony is a social worker. Quite amazingly, both sets of twins were born on the same day through different Indian surrogates. They refer to the four boys as quads.
Brett and Tony were born and bred in Bendigo, a town that really accepts them. They both had a great childhood and upbringing. They met in high school and were friends for 10 years before having a relationship, and their Nans were also friends.
Brett and Tony’s Routine parenting style:
- While the routine is locked in stone, from when they get up and go to bed to when and what they eat, they are very affectionate and loving with their kids.
- They are big fans of the Tizzie Hall book Save our Sleep, which they say saved their lives – they call it their bible.
- Tony accepts that he is a control freak and a neat freak. He owns the kitchen and Brett owns the laundry – he could be up until 2am doing it.
- They’re a close family and always have a united front.
- They live in a modern house and the boys have their own rooms, which are immaculate.
- The boys are on screens quite a bit, but Tony says Brett is the only one with a screen problem!
- They are very pragmatic with the boys about fairness – you don’t always get what you want.
Parenting style: French
Parents: Yann (43) and Donna (40)
Child: Harper (7)
Hometown: NSW
Yann and Donna live a European lifestyle with their daughter Harper. Yann is a project manager and Donna is a general manager.
Yann grew up in Paris (French Algerian) and Donna in Baulkham Hills (Australian Indonesian). Yann was raised in a classic French style and Donna was raised in a Tiger style and now finds the Tiger style very triggering. They call their style Nouveau French, being different from classical French in that it is not as strict and more affectionate.
Yann and Donna’s French parenting style:
- They live a fun lifestyle, give Harper lots of different experiences, and love going on dates with her, rarely leaving her with someone else. Their activities are more adult than kid-like, such as going to restaurants.
- They respect Harper and communicate with her like an adult.
- They believe the Nouveau French style of parenting is about raising a resilient child.
- Harper has a very sophisticated food palate. Favourite foods are scallop ceviche and salmon sashimi and all the French favourites, like steak tartare (raw egg and raw meat).
- Yann and Donna are strongly against smacking; they freak out at the prospect of it. They rarely yell at Harper.
- They believe in natural consequences and following through on consequences.
- They believe in encouraging Harper to try new things and foods.
- They don’t speak to her like a child. They believe kids deserve to be respected like equals, so they shouldn’t be spoken to like babies.
- Donna has a law degree and is admitted as a lawyer. She implements methods utilised on business employees with Harper and helps her deal with school dramas. For instance, “Tell that kid he’s defaming your character and ensure you always have witnesses when he is around you. There are precedents about defamatory behaviour”.
GROUP B
Parenting style: Tiger
Parents: Kevin (44) and Debbie (41)
Children: Mimi (12), Leo (10)
Hometown: NSW
Kevin is in technology and Debbie is a stay-at-home mum (accountant by trade). Debbie quit her job a year ago to help Mimi prepare for her scholarship exams. They met in Australia after moving here independently from Taiwan in their late teens.
Debbie says she adopted the Tiger style because she was Tiger-parented. She felt loved and supported; her mother was always there. She wanted the same for her kids. They believe they are at the moderate end of the Tiger spectrum, giving their children a lot of love and affection.
Kevin and Debbie’s Tiger parenting style:
- They hold their children to a very high standard in everything they do.
- They sit with Mimi and Leo to practise for one hour per day, per instrument, in addition to their coaching, orchestra and ensemble practice at school. They are passionate about music themselves and so can facilitate effective and efficient practice.
- Kevin and Debbie are constantly verbally reminding Mimi and Leo of their expectations around music, behaviour, food, eating, habits, speech, clothes, etc.
- They discipline by telling their children mum/dad is disappointed, embarrassed by their behaviour, their lack of effort or initiative, etc.
- They have beautifully behaved children who are obedient and respectful, and they share a lot of joy and laughter as a family.
- They use tough honesty to get their children to strive for their approval and have a family culture of the team, rather than the individual.
Parenting style: Home School
Parent: Deb (46)
Children: Jess (16), AJ (15), Ty (13), Cooper (11), Fletcher (9), Lulu (7)
Hometown: QLD
Deb home-schools all six of her children. She is a huge advocate for home schooling, and heavily involved in the online home-school community.
Deb’s Home School parenting style:
- Deb doesn’t think kids need the stress and pressure that traditional school puts kids under for a piece of paper that means nothing.
- Kids do a couple of hours of home-school every day and are relatively independent, but Deb supervises the younger ones.
- Deb runs a tight ship: she’s the captain, the kids are her crew. She sees herself as authoritative not authoritarian.
- She has clear expectations of the kids: they must complete chores and their home-schooling classes, listen to mum, and then they can play.
- All kids have chores. There is a chore chart, though they rarely use it because the kids know exactly what’s expected of them.
- She strongly believes in “training” children for two reasons:
- It prepares them for the real world
- Their house has six kids and one adult, and if everyone doesn’t pitch in the house would not function.
Parenting style: Helicopter
Parent: Rachel (35) and Sam (35)
Children: Gracie (7), Ellsie (5)
Hometown: QLD
Rachel is a full-time mum, personal trainer and parenting podcaster – Am I A Bad Mum? Sam is a former NRL player for the Brisbane Broncos and also a podcaster – We are Human delves into mental health issues in elite athletes.
While Sam and Rachel enjoyed some fame during his NRL career, they find parenting is the great equaliser, saying, “You still have to wipe bums and clean up vomit.”
Rachel and Sam’s Helicopter parenting style:
- Proudly reclaiming the word helicopter, or “smother mother”.
- Sam likes to think they’re not overbearing helicopters: “Not like the police helicopter, more like the fire and rescue helicopter. We let them do things and we’re there, but if they fall and get hurt, we’ll go and rescue them.”
- Sam says he would like them to have more freedom, but realistically he is anxious when the girls go out of sight. He has described himself as a security guard at the playground, supervising the girls from a safe distance.
- Being in the public eye, they need their kids to behave in public and they need to keep them safe from fans.
- Ellsie and Gracie are adventurous kids who climb trees, run around, dance, and play organised sports.
- Sam thinks the girls have had more exposure to stranger danger as he always has random people coming up to talk to him about the Broncos.
Parenting style: Free Range
Parent: Penny (35) and Daniel (37)
Children: Sebastian (9), Julian (6), Zahra (2)
Hometown: Newcastle, NSW
Penny works part-time and Daniel is in sales. Both are from Newcastle in NSW and have good relationships with their parents.
They say you need a tribe to be a free-range parent because they always forget things and other parents help them out.
Penny had a similar upbringing to the one she’s giving her kids and Daniel had the opposite. His parents gave him very little freedom and said no to all opportunities and adventures. He says his parents were always afraid of what would happen to them, having lived in Beirut prior to coming to Australia.
Penny and Daniel’s Free Range parenting style:
- Their goal is to raise independent adults who can thrive on their own.
- They live this way because it’s stress-free.
- Penny and Daniel are free range in every way: education, mealtimes, playtimes, bedtime, etc.
- Their kids are always climbing, jumping, tumbling, tackling and doing dangerous things, and Penny and Daniel don’t bat an eyelid.
- Their nine-year old rides his pushbike alone to school and goes to the park on his own. They don’t use floaties in the pool with their two-year-old, so she can swim easily. They have a ping pong table in their lounge room.
- They are free range because they want to raise creative, resourceful, independent kids.
- Penny and Daniel don’t believe in punitive discipline and talk to their children if there is any challenging behaviour.
- They are not entirely permissive however, and do not say “yes” to everything, such as asking for toys, or treats at the shops. They value spending lots of time together having fun and get compliance through having a strong relationship with their children.
Parenting style: Disciplined
Parent: Rob (42) and Sioux (42)
Children: Hudson (9), Fletcher (7)
Hometown: Barossa Valley, SA
Rob teaches high school and Sioux teaches primary, so everyone gets up and goes to school at the same time. They’re a very active and energetic family. Rob and Sioux have built a home gym in the backyard and the boys are heavily involved in sport. Rob plays cricket with them every day, mornings and after school.
Rob and Sioux set the rules and what they say goes. Consequences is a massive word for them.
Rob and Sioux’s Disciplined parenting style:
- Technology and television are strictly limited in their household. They offer alternatives like cricket, pushbikes, games, and a pet ferret.
- Highly structured – it’s important to establish routines, rules and standards.
- Consequences in their house include washing your mouth out with soap for bad language (they have done this twice), writing lines if the kids misbehave, or simply writing a letter of apology if they have an argument.
- Big goals: They genuinely believe they’re not just raising boys but preparing men who will have a positive impact on the world.
- The boys do their homework every night after dinner. If the parents don’t think they have enough homework they will assign them extra.
- Sioux is training the kids how to manage their money. They have a collection of money jars that are divided like the barefoot investor – save, splurge, etc.
- They have a chore chart, and the boys need to complete certain chores in each time frame to get their pocket money.
Hosts
ALLY LANGDON
Ally Langdon is one of Australia’s most respected journalists and co-host of Channel 9’s breakfast show TODAY alongside Karl Stefanovic.
She began on TODAY with Karl on January 4, 2020 in what became the biggest news year in modern memory, starting with bushfires that rolled into COVID-19, economies in freefall, Black Lives Matter protests, the Beirut explosion, the US election and then ending the year with American politics in turmoil.
Ally previously co-hosted Weekend TODAY with David Campbell in 2019, combining her presenting commitments with her 60 Minutes role as a reporter.
She joined 60 Minutes in 2011. Among her achievements include stories she has filed from Somalia in the midst of a brutal civil war, venturing into the raging heart of one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes on earth and coming face to face with Grizzly bears in the Canadian wilderness
Ally moved to Channel 9’s flagship current affairs program after nine years in the Sydney newsroom, where she frequently travelled the globe to cover major stories. She has also presented the 6pm 9News Sydney bulletin and filled in on TODAY, co-anchoring the network’s coverage of the Queensland flood disaster and reporting for the telethon that raised more than $10 million for the victims.
In 2010, while in South Africa for the FIFA World Cup, Langdon was the only Australian journalist to make it into Cameroon to cover the plane crash that killed six Australian mining executives.
At home, she played a key role in Channel 9’s award-winning coverage of the Australian federal election and hosted the prime-time documentary ‘A Royal Engagement’ when Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their plans to marry. Other major news events Langdon has covered include the drug wars in the Mexican town of Juarez, the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, and the return to Balibo in East Timor with the families of the five Australian newsmen killed during the Indonesian invasion in 1975.
Ally wrote the book ‘The Child Who Never Was –The Tegan Lane Story’ (released in 2007) after covering the inquest into the disappearance of the baby born to former water polo champion, Keli Lane. In December 2010, Lane was convicted of the baby’s murder.
Ally was also co-host of the 2019 Vision Australia’s Carols by Candlelight with David Campbell.
She lives in Sydney with her husband Michael and their young boy Mack and daughter Scout. She is also an Ambassador for R U Ok?, the Mirabel Foundation and Gidget Foundation.
DR JUSTIN COULSON
Dr Justin Coulson is one of Australia’s most trusted parenting experts. Over the past decade he has helped innumerable families with his six books about raising children.
Struggling with his own family relationships, Justin returned to full-time study in his late twenties, completing a psychology degree from the University of Queensland and then earning his PhD in Psychology from the University of Wollongong.
Now the focus of his life is his family and helping other families flourish. Justin has written six books and is a four-time bestselling author. He hosts the No. 1 parenting/family podcast in the country, Happy Families, is an occasional columnist for The New York Times, and appears regularly in all of Australia’s major news outlets.
Justin is an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Positive Psychology in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne and he is also a consultant to the Australian Government’s Raising Children Network, the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner, Life Education, Beyond Blue, Intel Security and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation.
Justin and his wife Kylie are the proud parents of six daughters, and they live in Brisbane, Queensland.
