In Part 1 of our story we looked at what ‘f**k around and find out’ parenting is, if MomTok is being performative with FAFO posts, and if gentle parenting is causing burnout. In Part 2, we look at the difference between FAFO parenting and ‘FWMAFO’ (f**k with me and find out) parenting, and whether FAFO can be done gently. We also talk to a leading parenting coach about FAFO, and get some great advice about raising children
Parenting has fashions, and ‘f**k around and find out’ parenting is fashionable right now. You can see around 920,000 posts at #fafo on TikTok.
And fashions change. FAFO parenting is a backlash against gentle parenting which was a backlash against authoritarian parenting. The question, as posed in an ABC article, is “is FAFO the 1980s parenting style today’s generation of kids need, rebellion against gentle child-rearing, or exhausted parents just throwing their hands in the air?”.
Here are some of the milder examples of FAFO parenting. If you forget to take your lunch to school, you go hungry. If you won’t take a raincoat, you get wet walking home. If you miss the bus, walk, even if you’ll get there late. If we’ve already paid for the karate lessons you asked for, and you don’t like it, you have to go to the rest of the sessions. A more full-on example? Throwing your child’s ipad out the car window because they’ve been misbehaving.
Where does FAFO parenting sit within the four parenting styles of authoritarian, authoritative, permissive, and uninvolved identified by revered developmental psychologist Diana Baumrind? Firstly, let’s note that research shows that the authoritative style leads to the best outcomes for children. It’s where parents balance love and warmth with boundaries and consequences, but not punishment. Whereas authoritarian parents expect and demand obedience without explaining their reasons.
Is FAFO parenting more authoritative or more authoritarian? Well, opinions differ. A Guardian article called ‘The Rise of Fafo Parenting’ says “advocates of Fafo say it teaches their child independence and the consequences of their actions, even if those consequences are uncomfortable or, at the extreme end, harsh. Critics say it relies too heavily on fear and humiliation, and that while children might comply as a result, it damages trust”.
Spicier?
American professor, psychologist and family therapist Dr Terri Mortensen says FAFO parenting shares some traits with an authoritative parenting style, but she doesn’t believe the two are the same. “‘I think FAFO is like a fun, fancy name that has come around and is a little spicier to fit some of the spicier parents that are out there,’ she told The Independent, also making a viral TikTok on the approach, which she thinks today’s society needs more of”.
“I find,” she adds, “that there’s a lot of overly permissive, very anxious parenting that’s happening. When we protect kids from everything, they struggle with confidence and resilience and being able to function later on because they haven’t gone through things and been successful. Therefore, they don’t have the confidence in themselves to be able to handle things and are always waiting for the safety net”.
She thinks FAFO parenting could be implemented as early as toddlerhood.
But what’s up with calling FAFO parenting ‘spicier’? That sounds more based on the parents’ temperaments than what children need, right?
Gently does it?
Gentle parenting isn’t permissive parenting. In fact, it’s a form of authoritative parenting, and authoritative parenting has the best outcomes for children. So can FAFO parenting actually be done somewhat, well, gently? Clinical child psychologist Robyn Koslowitz has written a Psychology Today story called ‘FAFO Parenting, But Make It Gentle’.
Koslowitz writes that “FAFO (f*ck around and find out) parenting has exploded online, and for a lot of parents, it feels like a relief. After years of being told to stay endlessly calm and validating, FAFO offers something different. It taps into a frustration many parents carry: gentle parenting can leave you feeling like the villain whenever your child is upset. If your toddler melts down, you must have failed to regulate, failed to connect, failed to stay serene. It’s exhausting. And toddlers aren’t reasonable people. Neither are teenagers, sometimes.” Logic doesn’t always work.
“Parents have been told that the goal is calm kids and calm parents, and when real life doesn’t work that way, it feels like you’re doing it wrong. No wonder FAFO has become the rallying cry. But here’s the thing: a lot of parents talk about FAFO with a FWMAFO tone – ‘F*ck with me and find out’. That’s when FAFO starts sounding like punishment or payback.”
FAFO works when kids learn from natural consequences, not parental punishment – and it shouldn’t resemble any kind of ‘revenge parenting’. “Its original meaning – ‘f*ck around and find out’ – points to something simple: the world teaches through experience. Kids learn by experimenting, failing, and adjusting. When we can hold steady while they do, FAFO aligns beautifully with a realistic form of gentle parenting.”
The Big Picture
I talked to Aucklander Justine Lamont, who runs her own business Good to Great Parenting, working with families as a coach and facilitator of parenting skills.
“For parents considering the way they’re raising their children,” she says, “I think it’s important to think about the overall picture – the bigger picture – on parenting styles”.
“FAFO is a trend rather than one of the four recognised parenting styles. Raising awareness about parenting styles is helpful for every parent and we don’t need to be perfect to have well-adjusted kids. No one is going to parent the way they want all the time and that’s ok. Parents will have a mixture of styles depending on their energy levels, and what’s going on with their children at a particular time.”
“The parenting style which has been associated with raising well-adjusted children is one that sets age appropriate limits and that does this in a warm and engaged relationship. That’s authoritative or ‘backbone’ parenting.”
The pendulum of parenting styles continues swinging back and forth. “In the 1990s there was a rise in the self-esteem movement which was often interpreted to mean parents couldn’t say ‘no’ to children. Some people have commented on gentle parenting as being similar to this.”
Does she think a backlash against gentle parenting has being brewing? “Yes. I’m writing a book, about what you can and can’t control in parenting, and what’s really interesting is that backlash idea. We’ve got fashions in parenting, like everything. Things we can’t control are genes or temperament, for example.” This means we adapt our approach for these factors.
“We’ve also got things we can control. We can control what we are paying attention to with our children when they’re making choices that serve them well. We can control putting our needs first so we have energy to do what we need to, and stay warm and connected.”
Do we pay attention to a ‘backlash’? “Every time I’ve ever run a course or facilitated a workshop, people have had strong views about the right way to parent. And so the backlash against parenting styles – and these strong feelings that people have about them – to me means parents are very invested and doing the best they can to raise healthy adults.”
As parents, she says, let’s start from a position of a healthy relationship. “We’re the ones with the fully-developed brains, and the life experience. Parents are going to know more about risks than children, and we can gradually hand more responsibility to them over time. Some children need a higher level of supervision than others. Parents are already working these things out.”
As for FAFO parenting, Justine prefers the term ‘fool around and find out’. “The first thing is, what is fooling around and finding out? It sounds like there’s an emphasis on letting kids experience the natural consequences of their actions. It also seems to be a reaction to this concept of gentle parenting, which most people interpret as not saying no to children. Parents are going to get a bit fed up, throw their hands up in the air, and say ‘righto, find out the consequences’.”
“But, like everything, it’s not that simple. Our job is to foster the skills that our children need.” And to be consistent – over time, step by step, teaching them about cooperation, and about the natural consequences of actions.
“You don’t have to be a dyed-in-the-wool FAFO parent to let kids experience the natural consequences of their actions. For instance, ‘if you forget your P.E. bag, you have to do your P.E. in your clumpy school shoes’. ‘If you miss out baking powder in the cake, it might still be edible, but you might be a bit disappointed’.”
Why does she think FAFO parenting appeals to some? “I think that, sometimes subconsciously, we expect that our kids should be able to do something straight away the first time we ask them.” It’s important, Justine says, to remember that our kids don’t have fully-developed brains. “And sometimes parents forget that their kids can’t predict risks that their kids have never encountered. Parents might have a ‘you-made-your bed’ approach, because parents can sometimes just be worn down, frustrated and not know what to do.”
Does she think FAFO parenting posts on social media are too extreme? “Well, we can ask, ‘is the post necessarily getting attention because people are, considering doing it? Or is it more of a talking point?’.” Plus a post can be stripped of context about rules, explanations, and problem-solving.
Throwing your child’s iPad out the window because they’ve been misbehaving is a bit crazy, though, right? “Oh, look, no judgment. We’ve all done things that, as parents, we regret. But we can’t rely on a knee-jerk parenting style to catch everything. It’s really important to work out rules and have a system in place. But I can understand why parents might be drawn to it [FAFO] because natural consequences seem a lot easier than constant streams of reminders.”
We should be clear on how, when and why we use FAFO parenting (if at all). “If you use it in a way that will foster a child’s abilities, it could build independence. But if you use it in a way where you’re a bit annoyed and fed up, that could maybe damage the trust which undermines relationships. And the art of parenting really is to know what the difference is.”
“We can come back to the idea of asking ourselves ‘is this approach going to damage the trust or undermine the relationship?’. We can coach our kids through a problem by asking them ‘what’s your plan?’ or ‘how could that happen differently?’.” Children are natural problem-solvers, so we need to let them do that when possible. They also need to know it’s normal to make mistakes and fail sometimes, and that, most importantly, they know we love them unconditionally.
“If part of the FAFO approach is to encourage children to be independent and curious, you could blend that with some of the approaches I’ve taught for 20 years. We know what works. We know what kids need. Kids need parents who have thought through what to do in a difficult moment, and we can’t do that every time as we don’t have a crystal ball. As a parent, it comes back to this: you’ve got your limits and you’ve got your warmth, so you need both.”
She says you can also work out what age-appropriate independence is. “There’s a balance between kids being independent and too dependent. Because if we over-support our children, they can become dependent on us.” It’s tricky because we want our kids to be cooperative, yet also want them to be curious problem-solvers who, particularly as adults, can stand up for themselves.
“It’s really hard to get it balanced. And I don’t think there’s any perfect parent with perfect children. That’s a myth.”
We’re all out here doing our best.
 parenting styles, and whether FAFO can be done gently){kind=link}