#89. On Being a Trustful, Autonomy-Supportive Parent

Here I describe eleven practices that characterize what I consider to be the ideal parenting style.

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Dear friends,

I have written much elsewhere about the value of trustful parenting (e.g. here and here). Trustful parents trust Mother Nature’s plan for child development; they facilitate rather than inhibit children’s inborn drives to play and explore on their own and with other children, to make their own decisions, to take risks, to learn from their own mistakes and failures. Trustful parents do not measure or try to direct their children’s development, because they trust children to direct their own development. They understand that human children, like all organisms, have an internal, DNA-driven plan for development. All they need is a fertile environment. Trustful parents are not negligent parents. They provide not just freedom, but also the sustenance, love, respect, moral examples, and environmental conditions required for healthy development. They support, rather than try to direct, their children’s development.

As I wrote here, trustful parenting sends messages of empowerment to children: “You are competent. You have eyes and a brain and can figure things out. You know your own abilities and limitations. Through play and exploration, you will learn what you need to know. Your needs are valued. Your opinions count. You are responsible for your own mistakes and can be trusted to learn from them. Social life is not the pitting of will against will, but the helping of one another so that all can have what they need and most desire. We are with you, not against you”

I like the term trustful parenting but is not common in the research literature. My concept of it is in some ways the opposite of what is commonly called helicopter parenting in the research literature as well as in common parlance. Helicopter parenting is characterized by intrusive monitoring, controlling, and correcting the child’s behavior along with attempts to plan and control the child’s future. Dozens of studies have shown that emerging adults who grew up with such overinvolved parents are disproportionately likely to suffer from anxiety, depression, low self-efficacy, and reduced self-control compared to otherwise comparable young adults who grew up with parents who were less hovering and controlling (for reviews, see McCoy et al, 2024; La Rosa et al, 2025). They have not had sufficient opportunity to learn how to run their own lives.

Another common term in the parenting research literature is autonomy-supportive parenting. As the term implies, this is parenting aimed at reinforcing the child’s sense of freedom. Autonomy-supportive parenting is not exactly the opposite of helicopter parenting; that opposite might be called laissez-faire parenting. Autonomy-support implies more than just backing off; it also implies active support of the child’s autonomy, such as by finding materials related to the child’s interests and providing help the child needs and wants in striving toward his or her own goals (Edlynn, 2023).

Dozens of studies have shown that teens and young adults who experienced this type of parenting are, on average, psychologically healthier, socially more well-connected, and more self-motivated and self-regulated than otherwise comparable others (Edlynn, 2023; Vasquez et al, 2016). Other studies have shown that young children whose parents are autonomy-supportive manifest better problem-solving abilities than otherwise similar children whose parents are less autonomy-supportive (Vulcan et al., 2018). Research has also revealed that the combination of low helicoptering and high autonomy support is more efficacious than either alone for healthy psychological development (Bradshaw et al., 2024).

I have now decided on a new term for what I had previously called trustful parenting. I’ll call it trustful, autonomy-supportive parenting, abbreviated TAS parenting. This term, though more cumbersome, is more descriptive than the term I had used in previous writing. TAS parents not only trust their children to direct their own behavior but support those decisions by providing help where help is needed and desired.

Trustful, Autonomy-Supportive Practices

Practically, what does it mean to be a TAS parent? Here is a list of practices that come to mind.

• Recognize the child as a unique, whole person, not the parent’s creation. TAS parents recognize that the child is not their creation, not an extension of them nor a reflection of them, but a whole new separate person. The parent’s goal is to understand who the child is and help the child be that person, not shape the child into something else. TAS parents recognize that the child’s universe does not spin around the parents and the child’s goal is to become ever less dependent on the parents. TAS parents don’t take much credit, nor much blame, for their children’s actions; they just concentrate on understanding and helping where required.

• Attempt to see from the child’s point of view. This is the basis for empathy. If the child is angry or in some way misbehaving, TAS parents try to understand why from the child’s perspective. The child may not be able to state clearly the reasons for such behavior, and may not even be aware of the reasons, but the parent, knowing the child and having once been a child, has a means of understanding. That does not mean acceptance of misbehavior, but it means being on the child’s side, rather than against the child, in trying to find a solution.

• Focus on the child’s present, not future. It’s natural for parents to have some concern about their child’s future. We all want our children to grow up to be kind, moral, happy, healthy adults who can provide and care for themselves and others. But TAS parents know that the child’s future is the child’s responsibility, not the parent’s. It is the child, not the parent, who must determine his or her life goals and routes toward achieving them.

TAS parents recognize that the best they can do to help their child toward a satisfying future is to provide the conditions required for a satisfying childhood. Children who feel secure in their relationship with their parents, who feel supported rather than controlled, who feel trusted and therefore trustworthy, and who have a good enough environment in which to play, explore, and learn (including plenty of opportunities to make friends and interact with others beyond the family), will be best able to chart their own satisfying futures. A happy childhood leads, most often, to a happy adulthood; and an unhappy childhood leads, often, to an unhappy adulthood.

• Do not do for children what they can do for themselves. Children come into the world designed by nature to want to do as much for themselves as they can. That is how they progress toward adulthood. TAS parents understand this, so they allow their children the freedom to do for themselves what they can, even though they will not do it as well as the parent could. TAS parents allow their children to make mistakes and to fail, because they know that mistakes and failures are inevitable components of learning. When they provide help, they do so by supplementing and supporting the child’s own efforts rather than by taking over the task completely. The goal is to abet the child’s striving for independence, not interfere with it. One research study showed that parents were more patient about letting their children complete tasks themselves, even though this slowed things down, if the parents understood that this is how children learn (Shachnai et al., 2024).

• Expect children to be partners in family chores. Nobody wants to be always a recipient and never a giver, and that applies to children as much as adults. It is empowering to be helpful. Everyone in a family is a unique individual, but they are on the same team, and teamwork is the ingredient of family coherence. Research has shown repeatedly that little children want to help. In a classic research study, conducted more than 40 years ago, Harriet Rheingold (1982) observed children, ages 18, 24, and 30 months, interacting with their mother or father as the parent went about doing routine housework, such as folding laundry, sweeping the floor, clearing dishes off the table, and putting away items scattered on the floor. The result was that all of these young children—80 in all--voluntarily helped do the work, without being asked. In Rheingold’s words, “The children carried out their efforts with quick and energetic movement, excited vocal intonations, animated facial expressions, and with delight in the finished task.” Other research has shown that in cultural settings where parents routinely allow their toddlers to help in such ways, even when the “help” slows things down, the children continue to help, voluntarily, throughout their development and contribute meaningfully to the home economy (Alcala et al., 2014).

Of course, TAS parents recognize that children and adults should discuss together how they will help, so they have choices about who will take on which tasks. One aspect of autonomy is having a say in how you will contribute to the household. Volunteering to do something feels great; being ordered to do the same thing does not. Children, especially as they grow older, like to take on ever more complex and challenging tasks. Not just washing dishes, but cooking dinner, for example.

• Involve children in decision-making and problem-solving. I’m not suggesting equal democratic power within the household. That’s unrealistic. But TAS parents recognize that children like to be at least consulted and heard in family decisions. This is part of respecting the child as a contributing member of the family. Moreover, everyone feels better about decisions for which they had input. Family rules can be made by discussion with the goal of consensus. Family vacations will be more pleasant if everyone agrees on, or at least consents to, a destination and plan. In resolving problems, children, with their natural creativity and fresh insights, may even come up with solutions that the parents didn’t consider. TAS parents don’t give up their authority, but they share it with children in ways that are commensurate with each child’s maturity and abilities.

• Reinforce moral values more than achievement. TAS parents recognize the harm of parental pressure for high grades in school or excellent performance in athletic or other competitive events (discussed in Letter #80). They also understand that what the world needs is not more “winners,” but more decency, and that people who are kind and care about the welfare of others do well in life because others, in turn, care about them and befriend them. TAS parents know that what happens in school is the child’s own business, not theirs, unless the child seeks consultation. But if TAS parents do inquire about the school day, they might ask, “Did you get a chance to show kindness to someone in need of kindness?” rather than “How did you do on that test?” (suggested by Grant & Grant, 2019). Of course, the primary way that TAS parents teach moral values is by exhibiting them in their own behavior. Kids are great hypocrisy detectors.

• Instead of banning activities, teach safety rules. Parents are naturally and properly concerned about their children’s safety. One way, not the TAS way, to try to promote safety is to prevent children from doing things that involve risk. Prevent them from going outdoors anywhere away from the home without an adult; don’t let them use sharp knives, or build fires, or climb tall trees, or turn on the oven. Don’t let them have a smartphone or use social media. Such restrictions reduce certain immediate risks, but they also greatly reduce learning opportunities, reduce the child’s sense of autonomy, reduce joy, and reinforce a message of distrust in the child’s competence.

Such banning may be appropriate for children who clearly lack the maturity required for the banned activity, but many U.S. parents today ban, even for 10-year-olds and young teens, activities that my friends and I were allowed to do at age 5 or 6 and kids in Finland and Norway are still allowed to do at about that age (Shaw et al, 2015; Welch, 2024). TAS parents know that a far better route to safety is to teach children how to do safely what they are physically capable of doing and want to do, and then allow them to do it, perhaps with careful monitoring at first and then with increasing independence.

• Respect the child’s privacy. Everyone, at least everyone beyond the age of about four, needs some privacy. Nobody likes to be snooped on all the time. This is especially true for teenagers, who are at a life stage where the primary developmental task is to break away, develop an identity independent of their parents, and experiment with ways of being, including ways of being intimate, which cannot be done with parents monitoring. Younger children benefit from time away from parents; teenagers need time away from parents. TAS parents respect that. Just as they don’t read their children’s diaries, they don’t monitor their internet explorations or the messages they send to friends; they don’t require detailed reports of what the child did every time the child was away from home; and they certainly don’t use digital tracking devices to follow their children’s every move away from home.

• Resist fear-based and defensive modes of parenting. The enemy of trust is fear, and, unfortunately, fear for children runs rampant in our society today. It runs rampant not because the world is truly more dangerous than it was in the past but because, as a society, we have generated dangerous myths about the dangers. The fears that children might be snatched away by strangers, or suffer some terrible accident, or make an irreversible life-damaging decision, or fail to achieve and end up as life failures (by whose criteria?) underlie both helicopter parenting, which is the overprotective brand of fear-based parenting, and tiger parenting, which is the pushy, controlling brand of fear-based parenting (here).

TAS parents understand that all adventure, all freedom, entails some risk and that a life without adventure and freedom is hardly worth living. TAS parents also know that, by empowering their children to practice decision-making and responsibility in their everyday life, they are providing the best possible protection for their children’s futures. Another fear that TAS parents set aside is fear of judgment from other adults. TAS parents are confident about their confidence in their children, and, if criticized for allowing their children freedoms that others don’t allow, they chalk that up to social blindness and find ways to explain calmly, not defensively, the rationale for their ways.

• Enable free play and independent exploration. Perhaps the biggest challenge for TAS parents is helping their kids find ways of playing and exploring independently, especially outdoors with other kids, in a world that is not very welcoming of such activities. That is a challenge for which I offered some solutions in Letter #46.

Concluding Thoughts

TAS parenting is healthier not just for kids but also for parents (see Letter #56). It allows parents to enjoy watching their children grow and develop without the never-ending worry and parent-child conflicts that accompany fear-based parenting styles. A research study conducted during the COVID lockdown period, when parents and kids were more or less locked in together for months, revealed that kids and parents coped much better in families with autonomy-supportive parents than in families where parents attempted more control (Neubauer et al., 2021).

And now, what do you think? What might you see as the challenges of TAS parenting in today’s world, and how might those challenges be met? This Substack is, in part, a forum for discussion. Your thoughts and questions are valued and treated respectfully by me and other readers, regardless of the degree to which we agree or disagree. Readers’ thoughtful comments and questions add to the value of these letters for everyone.

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With respect and best wishes,

Peter

References

Alcala, Rogoff, Mejia-Arauz, Coppens & Dexter (2014). Children’s initiative in contributions to family work in indigenous-heritage and cosmopolitan communities in Mexico. Human Development, 57, 96-115.

Bradshaw, E. L., Duineveld, J. J., Conigrave, J. H., Steward, B. A., Ferber, K. A., Joussemet, M., Parker, P. D., & Ryan, R. M. (2024). Disentangling autonomy-supportive and psychologically controlling parenting: A meta-analysis of self-determination theory’s dual process model across cultures. American Psychologist. Advance online publication. https://dx.doi.org/10.1037/amp0001389

Edlynn, E. (2023). Autonomy-supportive parenting. Familius LLC.

Grant, A. & Grant, A.S. (2019). Stop trying to raise successful kids and start raising kind ones. The Atlantic, Dec. 2019.

La Rosa, V.L., Ching, B.H-H., & Commodari, E. (2025). The Impact of helicopter parenting on emerging adults in higher education: a scoping review of psychological adjustment in university students. The Journal of Genetic Psychology, 186, 162–189. https://doi.org/10.1080/00221325.2024.2413490

McCoy, S.S., Dimler, L.M., & Rodrigues, L. (2024). Parenting in overdrive: a meta‑analysis of helicopter parenting across multiple indices of emerging adult functioning. Journal of Adult Development https://doi.org/10.1007/s10804-024-09496-5

Neubauer, A. B., Schmidt, A., Kramer, A.C., & Schmiedek, F. (2021). “A little autonomy support goes a long way: daily autonomy-supportive parenting, child well-being, parental need fulfillment, and change in child, family, and parent adjustment across the adaptation to the COVID-19 pandemic.” Child Development. https://srcd.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/cdev.13515.

Rheingold, H. (1982). Little children's participation in the work of adults, a nascent prosocial behavior. Child Development, 53, 114-125.

Shachnai, R., Asaba, M., Hu, L., & Leonard, J.A. (2024). Pointing out learning opportunities reduces overparenting. Child Development. DOI: 10.1111/cdev.14198

Shaw B, Bicket M, Elliott B, Fagan-Watson B, Mocca E, with Hillman M. (2015). Children’s independent mobility: an international comparison and recommendations for action. London: Policy Studies Institute.

Valcan, D.S., & Pino-Pasternak, D. (2018). Parental behaviours predicting early childhood executive functions: a meta-analysis. Educ Psychol Rev, 30, 607–649. DOI 10.1007/s10648-017-9411-9

Vasquez, A.C., Fong, C.J., Patall, E.A., Corrigan, A.S., & Pine, L. (2016). Parent autonomy support, academic achievement, and psychosocial functioning: a meta-analysis of research. Educ Psychol Rev, 28, 605–644. DOI 10.1007/s10648-015-9329-z

Welch, A. (2024). How to be a Norwegian parent: Let your kids roam free, stay home alone, have fun—and fail. The Guardian, July 11, 2024.