The case for ‘lighthouse’ parenting

Keeping up with the latest parenting trends can feel like an impossible juggling act these days — think helicopter parenting, tiger moms and free-range kids. Each method holds the promise of the ultimate parental triumph: resilient, confident and respectful children who turn into successful adults. But here’s the thing about parental trends: They often drift toward extremes and that can be problematic.
“Trends are about pendulum swings — you go from the different levels of overprotective parenting, and then the pendulum swings to overly permissive,” said Kenneth Ginsburg, a pediatrician specializing in adolescent medicine at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and co-director of the Center for Parent and Teen Communication.
What Ginsburg’s advocating for is not another trend.
It’s a return to “balanced” or — using the metaphor he coined — “lighthouse parenting,” an approach that strikes the middle ground between hovering and letting go completely. Like a steady, immoveable lighthouse, parents are there to show the way for the kids and empower them to make their own decisions without steering the ship for them, while remaining a consistent, reliable presence in their children’s lives.
Ginsburg, who first explored this concept in his 2015 book “Raising Kids to Thrive: Balancing Love With Expectations and Protection With Trust,” came up with the lighthouse metaphor to help parents visualize what he exactly he means. He co-wrote the book with his twin daughters, who are now 29. His latest book, “Lighthouse Parenting: Raising Your Child With Loving Guidance for a Lifelong Bond,” is slated for publication with the American Academy of Pediatrics for March of 2025.
“Part of it is you look into the waves and trust that your child will be able to ride them, but prepare them to do so,” said Ginsburg, who is also a professor of pediatrics at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine and works with homeless youth.
Ginsburg has spoken at Brigham Young University in the past and will be returning to Provo, Utah, in November to speak on “Building on the Strengths of Young People Who Have Endured Hardships” at a conference organized by the BYU-Public School Partnership for K–12 principals, administrators and teacher leaders.
Although Ginsburg’s “lighthouse parenting” metaphor is not new — he’s been speaking about the idea for a decade, he told me — it’s had a resurgence recently after Russell Shaw, the head of school at Georgetown Day School in Washington, D.C., wrote about the concept in The Atlantic.
“Too often, I watch parents overfunctioning — depriving their kids of the confidence that comes from struggling and persevering, and exhausting themselves in the process. Although this has been true throughout my career, it’s growing more acute,” Shaw wrote.
Subsequent articles in Parents and Canada’s CBC heralded the return of lighthouse parenting. And parenting coach Will Elliot offers an online course called Lighthouse Parenting that is based on “trust, understanding and respect.”
Lighthouse parenting is also “authoritative” parenting, Ginsburg underscored, and is to be distinguished from “authoritarian” parenting. In essence, he said, “It’s a return to common sense and what we know works.”
As Ginsburg explains it, lighthouse parenting is about finding the elusive balance between two essential forces in a child’s life. One is warmth and unconditional love — responding to a child’s emotional needs and recognizing their individuality. The other is providing structure — ensuring safety, setting boundaries and teaching values. “These are two seemingly opposing forces,” Ginsburg told me. “And the balancing act is about getting them right.”
Numerous studies show that balanced parenting leads to better outcomes for children. For example, a 1991 study and others have demonstrated that parenting styles that combine warmth and support with high expectations help protect teens from engaging in risky behaviors like drinking. Similarly, a 1992 study in Child Development revealed that students with authoritative parents performed better academically than those raised by authoritarian or permissive parents. The National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health also showed long-term positive impacts of balanced parenting on the teens. Other studies point to a correlation between parental warmth and better outcomes for kids.
To research parenting styles, scientists ask teens to answer survey questions about whether their parents are warm and supportive and whether they set strict rules and monitor the teens closely, according to the Center for Parent and Teen Communication, established in 2017 to provide science-backed strategies and materials to help parents successfully raise teens. Researchers also examine factors such as academic performance, substance use and behaviors.
So why are we latching onto another buzzword in the ongoing search for a better way to navigate parenting? According to Ginsburg, it’s because many of the trendy approaches that have dominated the parenting conversation in recent years have backfired.
“When you hover over your child, you push them away,” Ginsburg said. On the other end of the spectrum, an overly permissive approach— and trying to be your child’s friend — fosters anxiety and insecurity. “If you think back to your adolescent years — you loved your friend, but you also feared losing them,” Ginsburg said. Children should not fear losing their parents, he said.
Ginsburg, who is 62, said his passion for helping teens began in his teen years, when he had a particularly rough year as a 17-year-old struggling with depression and wishing that his sensitivities were welcomed and understood.
“The love of a parent has to be as rock solid as anything in the world, absolutely unconditional,” he said. A steady parent, like a lighthouse, is not going anywhere. “You can always look back, it’s always going to be a guide for you,” he said.
But parenting begins much earlier than the teenage years, and parents could begin implementing the “lighthouse” parent strategies early, said Ginsburg, whose most recent book is “Congrats ―You’re Having a Teen! Strengthen Your Family and Raise a Good Person.”
“Parenting begins when you’re holding your newborn,” he said. “You begin thinking about this balancing act early on. Lighthouse parenting really codifies how to do this, starting early on.”
The goal isn’t just raising kids, he told me, but raising “humans that stick together and that belong with each other across the generations.”
As such, ultimately “lighthouse parenting” is about creating enduring relationships in families. “When you guide your child in a loving way— your relationship lasts forever. And that’s my goal — I want to strengthen families.”
For Jeannine Jannot, parent and student coach in Atlanta, Georgia, the “lighthouse” approach is hearkening back to the ’70s and ’80s, when kids relied on their parents’ guidance and support, but “they weren’t in our business.” Jannot, who is a developmental psychologist and the author of “The Disintegrating Student: Struggling But Smart, Falling Apart, and How To Turn It Around,” has been advocating for more lighthouse and less helicopter parenting for the past decade.
“Our high-stakes, high-pressure educational achievement culture has pressured parents into feeling responsible for their students’ success,” she told me. She’s seeing this in the stress over grades in middle school and fear over college applications years before they are due. And even parents who have grown too involved with their kids’ lives and want to pull back are reluctant to do that.
“I hear from parents: ‘I’m micromanaging my kids too much and don’t want to do it, but I’m petrified of what will happen if I don’t’,” said Jannot, who identifies herself a “reformed helicopter mom.” She advises parents to “relearn” how to value of the relationship with their child over the child’s academics.
The role of parents will gradually evolve from overseeing and directing to guiding and advising.
“(Lighthouse parenting) shifts the parenting role from manager to mentor,” she told me. Or as Shaw wrote in The Atlantic, the role of parents should shift from a “boss” to a “consultant,” as kids get older.
How can parents ensure that their children feel loved and valued? According to Ginsburg, the key is to express it openly: “Don’t be afraid of the words.” Rather than offering empty praise, parents should provide genuine affirmations that show they notice their children and celebrate their growth. Setting rules and guiding them becomes more effective when done alongside these expressions of love.
And that’s really the essence of discipline, Ginsburg told me. “Discipline should be something that happens every minute of every day when we’re with our children,” he said. And discipline is not about punishment, but about guidance. In fact, the word “discipline” and “disciple” have the same root that comes from the Latin word “to learn.”
Lighthouse parenting, according to Ginsburg, can ease the pressure on parents.
Recently, U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy sounded the alarm on the issue of parental anxiety — nearly half of American parents say they are overwhelmed and stressed. Lighthouse parenting can be an antidote to parental anxiety, Ginsburg believes.
“I do not believe that we parent for perfection,” Ginsburg said. “And one of the best ways of being a role model for a human is to be a human.” Endeavoring to be perfect doesn’t raise perfect kids, he told me; instead “it gives them anxiety.” It’s watching their parents make mistakes and recover from them that helps kids cultivate emotional strength and resilience.
“I’m bringing it back to the very basics,” Ginsburg said. “Love, show up, strive to be a good person and show the kids what the journey looks like.”