Lighthouse parents have more confident kids
More over gentle parenting, it is all about lighthouse parenting in 2025. Here’s everthing you need to know about the childrearing style.
The first time my daughter forgot to take her lunch to school, I realised as I was rushing out of the house for a meeting.
Damn, I thought, but I swung by her school and dropped off her lunch box because I didn’t want her to go hungry. Never mind that it made me a little late for my meeting.
But that afternoon when I went to collect her from school, her Year 2 teacher, Mrs Pemberton, came up to me.
“I understand why you dropped it off, but if she forgets her lunch again leave her to sort it out,” she told me. “It’s a great opportunity for her to learn problem solving.”
Predictably, my daughter forgot her lunch box again a couple of weeks later. I resisted the urge to drop it off.
“What did you have to eat?” I asked at pick-up.
“Nothing,” she said, declaring she was “starving”.
The third time she forgot her lunch, she bounded up to me after school.
“Mum, I need to take $3 out of my piggybank to take to the canteen tomorrow.”
Turns out she’d been so hungry she went to the canteen and asked if they would give her a cheese sandwich on the condition she paid for it the following day.
I didn’t know it at the time, but Mrs Pemberton had just given me a lesson in “lighthouse parenting” – now considered the gold standard if you want to foster resilience, problem solving, confidence and emotional intelligence in your child.
While pediatrician Dr Kenneth R. Ginsburg coined the term “lighthouse parenting” a decade ago, the concept is only now gaining momentum as parents realise the “helicopter” model that underpinned the first quarter of this century isn’t serving us well.
As Ginsburg advocated, parents should be less like helicopters hovering over their kids and more like lighthouses – steady, reliable and always visible.
The metaphor is simple but powerful. A lighthouse doesn’t jump in the water and steer the ship. It doesn’t clear every rock out of the way. Rather, lighthouse parents are present, loving and trustworthy but they don’t smother. They offer guidance, structure and boundaries while simultaneously allowing children the space to take risks, make mistakes and learn resilience.
It all sounds sensible in theory but how can a parent learn to be a “lighthouse” when we’re so conditioned that love means meeting our children’s every need and supporting them through challenges. How do we learn to do less, control less and, in some cases, do nothing?
I take a typical conundrum to psychologist Michael Hawton, who has spent 20 years training parents and teachers in behaviour management.
“How would you apply lighthouse-style parenting – also known as authoritative parenting – to a situation where your child hasn’t been invited to a birthday party?”
Hawton is unfazed: “Well, it depends how the child interprets that,” he says, pointing out that often it’s the parent who is bothered rather than the child.
“If the child is interpreting it that their friend hates them, then … talk about how that’s an interpretation and while you can hear they are distressed, the fact is there’s a lot of times when people don’t get invited to things, and it happens to adults as well.”
Instead of fuming with other parents or organising another activity to distract the child, he says parents need to model perspective and point out that life is going to be full of unfairnesses and that people can be inconsiderate without being deliberately cruel.
This approach stems from Hawton’s broader philosophy that parents over-accommodate their children, thwarting their growth, problem-solving and self-regulation by making changes when their child is uncomfortable. They may allow them to have a day off school if they feel anxious or they may seek out the school principal if their child complains their teacher doesn’t like them.
Rather, he cites the work of Dr Eli Lebowitz who argues that parents need to be a mirror to their children.
“If a child looks at their parent and the parent sees the child as weak and vulnerable then that’s what they’ll become. But if a child looks into their parent’s eyes and what they see reflected back is a child who is strong and capable then that’s what they’ll become,” says Hawton, who is teaching these concepts in schools as part of The Anxiety Project.
No one likes to criticise parents, but Russell Shaw, a head teacher in Washington D.C., says in 30 years working in schools he’s never seen more parents over-functioning, thereby depriving their kids of the confidence that comes from struggling.
“What if the ways in which we are parenting are making life harder on kids and harder on us,” he writes in The Atlantic.
“What if by doing less, parents would foster better outcomes for children and parents alike?”
This “guiding rather than leading” approach is endorsed by one of Australia’s most influential teachers, Gavin McCormack, who wrote Raising Resilient Children: 7 Steps to Help Children Thrive in the Classroom and Beyond as a guide for parents.
He says he recently spoke to the parents of a newborn who had a unique approach.
“They’d had a conversation before their baby was even born about what kind of little person they wanted to grow. Not what they wanted him or her to be or have but what kind of person they wanted them to be.”
As a Montessori teacher, McCormack has long championed independence in children, including expecting parents to encourage their children to carry their own backpacks to and from school. If it’s too heavy they need to solve the problem, working with a parent to reduce the weight. Likewise, if they forget something they need, it’s on them not the parents.
In fact, he believes mistakes are critical to learning and lighthouse parents are doing their kids a service by letting them stuff up, rather than rescuing them.
“The misconception around failure is one of our biggest downfalls. Some of our most successful people have made multiple mistakes,” he says, imploring parents not to assist with school projects but instead be a supporting guide as they complete the work independently.
“Children love to try new things and we need to celebrate the journey of discovery rather than the result. Seeing a child’s face when they’ve done (a project) on their own compared to when they’ve been assisted by an adult … it’s a different experience. If they want to paint a skyscraper pink then so be it.”
By acting like a beacon rather than a helicopter parent – or snowplough (sometimes called lawnmower) where obstacles are pushed out of the way – children learn to develop both an internal locus of control and intrinsic motivation.
McCormack says the latter helps a child discover what they like and what’s important to them.
He tells how he once told a classroom that he was going to visit a school in Nepal and showed them pictures of a previous visit. The next day one of his pupils came to school with a suitcase of his own belongings so McCormack could deliver them to the Nepalese children.
“When I came back … I showed him photos so he could see the things in his suitcase in the hands of children on the other side of the world. They were now learning because of him. There is no grade, no point, no score, no chart, no sticker that can replace that feeling.”
TIPS FOR BEING A LIGHTHOUSE PARENT
Acknowledge
Your child complains that they’re doing all the work for a group project and instantly you tell them to assign roles to the other group members or suggest they tell the teacher which parts they do so they get the credit. But as Shaw points out, you’re signalling to your child that parent involvement is needed. Instead, simply acknowledge. “Wow, that sounds like a lot,” he advises saying. “Do you have ideas about what you want to do.”
Ask children what they expect
Build trust and a culture of mutual respect by asking your child what they expect from you as a parent or what makes a terrific parent in their eyes, suggests McCormack. As well as giving you an incredible insight, it’s a device which helps parents and kids to hold each other accountable.
Actively listen
As a teacher, McCormack learned to acknowledge every child within 30 seconds of them entering his classroom and he invites parents to fully engage with their children. “Listen to understand, not just respond,” he advises.
Name it to tame it
Emotion coaching is the process of tuning in to what your child is experiencing by showing empathy and helping them label their feelings, says Hawton. By extending their emotional vocabulary they build trust in you and themselves which helps them problem solve.
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Originally published as Lighthouse parents have more confident kids
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