How much do you parent the way you were parented?

[elephantjuice]

Have been thinking a lot about this recently and wondered what everyone else thinks.

From reading threads on here it seems a lot of people truly value their own parents' input and opinions in the raising of their own children. It's always striking to me as while I love my mum and dad and value the relationship they have with my 3 dc, the way I bring up my kids is so different from the way I was brought up.

I suspect that we do what was done to us unless we see a different and better way.

My parents have huge problems with showing any kind of emotion, for example, especially negative ones like anger, and tell me my ds should be smacked for having tantrums because it's wrong. To me this is nonsense.

These differences cause tension when we are together but because we live on different continents it's a twice a year problem.

Also I worry my dc will see me in this way when they are older.

Would be really interested to hear other people's experiences.

the pendulum has swung a bit too far with me - I'm so concerned not to run the sort of tight, autocratic regime I grew up under that I'm probably a bit too liberal for comfort

but so it goes, my children will probably be strict disciplinarians with their own offspring

My mother was totally over-protective of me to the point of obsession - partly, I think, because I was an only child. I have therefore made a point of giving DCs much more freedom and responsibility for themselves, although naturally I am still watching over them and expect them to behave - I have not turned into one of the lazy "anything goes" Mum's from Wife Swap!

Same goes for me, Barefoot girl - my parents never let me do anything remotely risky and actively encouraged me NOT to try things like bike riding and tree climbing or anything where you could hurt yourself really.

My DH can't believe the things I wasn't allowed to do, but he was a "playing on the train track" kind of kid.

We were walking along the edge of a canal once with my parents and 3 kids under 5, and you could see them visibly twitching every time one of the dc edged near the water. In the end they couldn't stop themselves, grabbed hands of all the kids and exclaimed in panicked voices "What if they fall in?!", to which DH replied "Then we fish them out."