I read and vibed with much of Jonathan T. Rothwell’s recent article, The Parenting Trap, featured in the After Babel Substack. He argues for a pendulum swing from permissive parenting back toward “authoritative parenting,” especially when it comes to limiting potentially harmful technology for kids.

On my first read, I nodded often, feeling stimulated and seen as both educator and parent. But, as I re-read and processed the whole piece, I felt uneasy. Was there something important lost in the collapsing of the argument to one A-word (authority) against another (autonomy)? And was that in the best service of kids today?

Points of alignment

As a classroom teacher then school principal in the early Aughts, I witnessed plenty of permissive parenting gone too far—from demands that a late essay receive full credit, to parents who admitted to me, sheepishly, that they had no idea how to say “no” to their middle schooler (something my own parents rarely seemed to struggle with). Now that I have teens, I can better understand those parents’ struggles, and yet I am with Rothwell–kids need limits, guardrails and the comfort of adults who actively provide them.

Rothwell’s data on shifting parenting priorities are also quite compelling, and I am 100% behind statements like, “Most people would likely agree that obedience to laws and basic social norms of decency and mutual respect remain important”—especially as those norms feel like they’re unraveling daily.

As I reread the post, though, my initial feeling of alignment drifted toward discomfort and a series of questions surfaced.

First: obedience?

This word popped right out. Even though Rothwell acknowledges that the word has negative connotations, it still doesn’t feel right for this moment. In a time when it’s increasingly hard to know which sources of information to trust, “obedience” to authority would not be the first skill I’d wish for my kids.

The term also echoes what education reformers call “horizon one”—the legacy education-and-economy system built to produce a compliant labor force, not the generation who will soon need to reinvent what work even means.

Today, forward-looking models of learning emphasize agency and autonomy. In The Third Horizon of Learning, education nonprofit, Getting Smart, argues that, in an age of AI and automation, young people need “agency, adaptability, creativity, critical thinking, and the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn.” It’s hard to argue that any of those flourish under obedience-first thinking.

Opposing a-words.

What bothered me even more, however, was how another A-word — autonomy — was not only underrepresented, it was actually framed as a problem. The post suggests parents went wrong when “parents increasingly came to value autonomy over obedience.”

The data may suggest that we pit autonomy and obedience against each other—but should we?

Why the binary extremes?

My career and parenting life have been full of dizzying pendulum swings: whole language vs. phonics, attachment parenting vs. sleep training…on and on. After all the whiplash, I long for agreement that the best answers rarely live at either extreme. The truth is, they most often live in the blend.

Yes, phonics matter. And yes, kids also need rich literature and language to actually want to read.

The same is true of autonomy and structure. Kids need guardrails. But kids, especially adolescents, also need autonomy. They need to feel capable, trusted, and respected.

Isn’t supporting autonomy important…and effective?

In The Breakthrough Years, Ellen Galinsky identifies agency—“the need for autonomy and respect”—as an essential psychological need of adolescence. She also points to “autonomy supportive” parenting as a promising means to support agency which, as she writes, “includes both autonomy and structure,” not as either/ors but as both, together.

Galinsky supports this perspective, in part, with decades of research from Wendy Grolnick. Grolnick’s work demonstrates that kids thrive not when parents control everything, but when parents create the conditions for autonomous motivation. Grolnick distinguishes:

• Autonomy-supportive parenting → listening, offering meaningful choices, taking the child’s perspective, encouraging initiative.

• Controlling parenting → pressure, guilt, rigid rewards/punishments that undermine internal motivation.

These studies repeatedly indicate that autonomy-supportive parenting predicts better well-being, self-regulation, engagement, and resilience. As she puts it:

“We need to feel autonomous…like we’re the owner of our actions and not pushed or coerced.”

More recently, Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop build on these ideas in The Disengaged Teen, demonstrating how kids benefit most from autonomy-supportive environments, both in school and at home.

And, if we’re really trying to limit harmful behaviors, we ought to consider what David Yeager demonstrates—how, from smoking to bullying to teen health, authoritative, top-down interventions have repeatedly failed—sometimes backfiring entirely.

Are parents less demanding, or just demanding in a new way?

Another question stuck with me. The article uses a common two-dimensional model of parenting—responsiveness crossed with demandingness—and concludes that today’s parents have become too low in demandingness.

That resonates in many ways, and the data bears out with kids spending more time on activities their parents wish they were not engaged in (e.g. social media) and less time on activities associated with thriving (e.g. hobbies, paid jobs, schoolwork).

I’m concerned, though, that to say parents are not demanding is to obscure a new, more subtle and powerful force we exert on kids. Plenty of parents, in an earnest effort to give their kids opportunities (like access to higher education), impose a different kind of demandingness—the pressure to perform without the chance to really contribute.

This includes pressure to perform academically, in sports, and in a wide range of extra curricular/resume building activities. Each of these are ways to “stand out” and achieve deferred future success, but too few of them involve opportunities to contribute right now to the family or community in meaningful ways.

This may be just as harmful as a lack of enforced respect ever could be. For example, this recent study from the UK highlights the dangerous link between school pressure and self harm.

To top it off, all of this pushing kids to perform is happening within a broader system in which promises that those performances shall be rewarded feel shaky at best.

A better set of demands?

Maybe part of what we really need is a better set of demands—neither old-school obedience nor command performances. What if we give kids meaningful chances to do real things, to contribute, and to matter?

“Mattering is the sense that we are valued by others and that we have value to contribute to the world. At its core, mattering answers our most fundamental human questions: Am I valued? Does my presence make a difference?” —Jennifer B. Wallace, Mattering

We could take inspiration from Andrew Fuligni’s work, which consistently shows that “family obligation”—the belief in and behaviors associated with assisting, respecting, and materially supporting your family—can be a powerful developmental asset for adolescents, as long as they are not paired with overwhelming burden or stress. As long as kids have agency–the combination of autonomy and the support they need from a loving adult.

To circle back to the issue at hand—navigating a world of digital media—what if we focus less on obedience and more on including kids in identifying, setting and maintaining limits for themselves? Better yet, what if they are part of setting and holding limits for the whole family? Parent/caregiver media use is inextricably tied to kid’s experience of media and their development of healthy habits and strategies.

A “triple threat” approach.

Forgive the basketball analogy (March is a mad month in our house), but perhaps it’s time to move beyond the old 2-D model of responsiveness + demandingness toward a more nuanced and powerful 3-pronged approach to supporting our kids. A three-dimensional, better balanced set of parenting qualities:

• Authoritative → intentional limits and structure

• Attuned/Responsive → warm, respectful responses to kids’ needs

• Autonomy Supportive → support kids need for agency and respect

Not as competing forces, but as elegantly woven partners. I don’t see how we can prepare kids for the future without appropriate doses of all three.

So where does this leave us?

I’m grateful for this piece, both for what resonated about it and for the questions it sparked. Questions like how can we develop ways to give our kids the structure, support, and autonomy they so desperately need? It might seem more complicated to do this than to simply swing back to a singular focus on authority. But, I think it’s a better way to make the most of the madness of parenting, in March and all the other months.

What do you think?

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