Parents today can be too permissive or too harsh.

Question and Answer

In childrearing, there seem to be two extremes that are both harmful to kids, being too permissive and being too harsh. Which is the most common error in Western cultures today?

Permissiveness is still more common and has been since the 1950s. But harshness and severity still occur frequently as well. These dual dangers are equally harmful to children and were described by Marguerite and Willard Beecher in their book Parents on the Run. This is how they saw the two extremes:

"The adult-centered home of yesteryear made parents the masters and children their slaves. The child-centered home of today has made parents the slaves and children the masters. There is no true cooperation in any master-slave relationship, and therefore no democracy. Neither the restrictive-authoritative technique of rearing children nor the newer "anything goes" technique develop the genius within the individual, because neither trains him to be self-reliant." 1

The way to raise healthy children is to find the safety of the middle ground between disciplinary extremes.