section_path: Styles/Trustful parenting
section_name: Trustful parenting
paragraph_text: Trustful parenting
  
  Trustful parenting is a child-centered parenting style in which parents trust their children to make decisions, play and explore on their own, and learn from their own mistakes. Research professor Peter Gray argues that trustful parenting was the dominant parenting style in prehistoric hunter-gatherer societies. Gray contrasts trustful parenting with "directive-domineering" parenting, which emphasizes controlling children to train them in obedience (historically involving using child labor to teach subservience to lords and masters), and "directive-protective" parenting, which involves controlling children to protect them from harm. Gray argues that the directive-domineering approach became the predominant parenting style with the spread of agriculture and industry, while the directive-protective approach took over as the dominant approach in the late 20th century.