Parents Who Seek Help Need to Lighten Up

In a Washington Post op-ed on parenting, Marina Lopes writes that she frequently leaves her children with a friend who lives next door. She and her friend have different parenting styles, the friend's being much stricter. And Lopes is fine with that, as are her kids, who have learned to roll with getting yelled at a little more often. In the column, Lopes urges parents of all stripes to be more flexible when others watch their children:

• "Parents say they want a village, but too often, we only want villagers who parent exactly like we do. When caregivers don't align with our philosophies, we sometimes opt out, at a cost."

The different types of parenting these days can be dizzying—gentle parenting, conscious parenting, positive parenting, attachment parenting—etc. Each have their own "rules." But Lopes suggests that adhering too strictly in our choice of caregivers does more harm than good to children. Read the full column, which is drawn from her travels around the world to observe parenting techniques, as laid out in her book Please Yell at My Kids.