Use praise more than criticism

There are two main forms of parental pressure: direct pressure and indirect pressure.

• Direct pressure often involves yelling, force, or complaining.
• Indirect pressure may involve guilt-tripping your child or reminding them of rigid expectations.

• Avoid teasing or criticizing your child about their weight or appearance. These types of behaviors are strongly tied to the development of eating disorders in young adults.
• Monitoring or restricting food can backfire, leading your child to adopt unhe...

Authoritative parenting — rather than authoritarian parenting — is tied to high self-esteem in children. When parents are overly controlling, children can lose faith in themselves and their ability to do things or listen to their own feelings.

Instead of telling your child ...

You might be tempted to intervene in your child’s life out of a sense of duty or control, such as:

• asking your child’s teachers for extra credit
• scolding a classmate who hurt your child’s feelings
• hiding or restricting access to food.

But if you help...

It’s easy to assume that your child is a smaller extension of you who feels the same way you do about the same things.

But when you give credence to your child’s feelings instead of seeking to control them — even when they’re not the same as yours — you acknowledge ...

Parents might feel the need to pressure their children for many reasons.

• Research shows that 86% of parents pressure their kids because they grew up with distant or negligent parents and wanted to pay more attention to their own children.
• Guilt

This is the emotional stress parents impose upon their children and is often related to academic performance, extracurricular activities, social standards, appearance, friendships, and romantic relationships.

Certain parenting experiences might prompt you to pressure your kids to make diffe...