Parenting with Love, Limits, and Latitude

We learn in the "Successful Marriages and Families" book that the best type of parenting is authoritative parenting style. It states in the reading that this type of parenting "fosters a positive emotional connection with the children, provides regulations that place fair and consistent limits on child behavior, and allows for reasonable child autonomy in decision making." It is through these three steps of love, limits, and latitude that we are able to become the type of parents that God intents us to become.
LOVE:
President Gordon B. Hinckley stated, "Every Child is entitled to grow up in a home where there is warm and secure companionship, where there is love in the family relationship, where appreciation one for another is taught and exemplified, and where God is acknowledged and His peace and blessings invoked before the family altar." Research as shown that children are less aggressive and more sociable and empathetic if they have parents who are more loving, patient, playful, responsive, sympathetic to children's feelings and needs. 1

LIMITS:
Finding ways to effectively help children learn how to regulate their own behavior in noncoercive ways is one of the most challenging parts of authoritative parenting. It is important for parents to be clear and firm about rules and expectations. President Spencer W. Kimball taught, "settling limits to what a child can do means to that child that you love him and respect him." When a consequence needs to be enforced the scriptures teach, "showing forth afterwards an increase of love towards him whom thou hast reproved" (D&C 121:43). Parents must correct in a claim, controlled manner. 1

LATITUDE:
Children benefit from being given choices and appropriate levels of latitude to make their own decisions in a variety of domains. Children learn and grow by making choices within the limits that are acceptable to parents. Elder M. Russell Ballard taught, "Helping children learn how to make decisions requires that parents five them a measure of autonomy, dependent on the age and maturity of the child and the situation at hand. Parents need to give Children choices and should be prepared to appropriately adjust some rules, thus preparing children for real-world situations." 1

In this video, Elder Larry R. Lawrence encourages parents to be courageous and take a stand. He reminds parents that they are responsible for the protection of their children both physically and spiritually and those who love their children cannot afford to be intimated by them.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uZlZoQ2DK4U&feature=player_embedded

1.Alan J. Hawkins and David C. Dollahite and Thomas W. Draper, ed., “Successful Marriages and Families: Proclamation Principles and Research Perspectives”, Chapter 10