Are You a Laid-Back Parent?

Find out where your strengths lie. There are no right answers. Click on the ones that sound most like you.

Q. 1) Your daughter is climbing a tree. You:

a) Bite your tongue and let her climb. You don’t want to be overprotective.
b) Know she has a good survival instinct and won’t do anything too dangerous.
c) Tell her to get down at once because she could fall and break her arm.
d) Tell her to get down because she might hurt the tree (you are actually frightened she’ll get hurt, but don’t want to pass on your fear).
e) Let her climb trees? Are you kidding?

Q. 2) Your older child has a friend over. Your younger child is driving them crazy, following them around and trying to bug them. You:

a) Tell them it’s a tricky problem, but you trust them to come up with an idea that will make everyone happy.
b) Try to calm the situation, and after the friend has gone ask your children for suggestions for next time.
c) Shout at your youngest for being annoying, or at your oldest for not letting the little one play.
d) Force them all to play together.
e) Hover round them all day - suppose they beat each other up?

Q. 3) You and your children are making Christmas cards. You realise your son has been misspelling the word ‘Christmas’. You:

a) Think it’s rather cute, and let him carry on. He’ll learn to spell eventually.
b) Ask him to figure out the missing letter, you know he’ll spot it.
c) Tell him you can’t send out cards with mistakes, put them in the bin and redo them yourself.
d) Get wound up and shout at everybody. This project has been nothing but hassle, and this is the last straw.
e) Shoo him away. It’s less stressful to do the cards on your own.

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