To raise great children, you first need to become a great parent. Check out five trending methodologies that will set you up for 2025
As we approach 2025, several key trends are emerging that reflect parents’ everevolving priorities and challenges. These trends encompass mental health awareness, technology-driven innovations, personalised education options and a deepened focus on sustainability and inclusivity. Parents are also learning from the past: jettisoning the overly permissive parenting styles of recent years in favour of – dare we say it – more of an old-school, authoritative approach that’s tried-and tested, and proven to make family life easier.
Let’s dive into some of the trends that parents are embracing in order to set the stage for a generation that is resilient, empathetic and well-prepared for the future.
LIGHTHOUSE PARENTING
Lighthouse parenting, currently trending, is something we can definitely expect to see a lot of in 2025. The term was popularised by Dr Kenneth Ginsburg, a paediatrician and author, who coined the phrase to describe a grounded and everpresent parenting style that combines a desire to nurture and protect with an understanding that children need the freedom to find their own way. As Dr Ginsburg puts it, “Our job as parents is to stand steady, like a lighthouse, to guide our children, not to steer every move they make.”
Lighthouse parenting strikes a balance between two extremes – on the one hand, there’s helicopter parenting with parents ever-ready to swoop in at the first sign of distress. On the other hand, there’s hands-off parenting, which prioritises children’s independence above all else. Lighthouse parenting takes the middle ground, emphasising guidance over control, and resilience over dependence.
Lighthouse parenting means being emotionally available and creating a home environment where kids feel safe to express their feelings, ask questions and make mistakes. It’s also about guiding children through challenges rather than solving problems for them. There’s an understanding that children who are allowed to take risks and work through problems on their own tend to be more resilient and better equipped to handle stress. By promoting self-efficacy, lighthouse parenting builds a strong foundation for emotional intelligence and problem-solving. It encourages kids to see challenges as opportunities to grow rather than crises to be avoided.
Having reflected on the mistakes that created the “snowflake” generation – a term that denotes weakness, self-entitlement and an inability to cope with life’s realities – today’s parents are refusing to mollycoddle. The aim is to protect children, without engendering dependency; to make children feel special, without enabling egotism or complacency; to inform children about the world, without encouraging irrational anxieties, victimism and nihilism. (No easy task!)
At the end of the day, overprotective parenting is a habit that’s begging to be broken. “Benign neglect” is a buzzword for 2025 that’s not as contentious as it sounds. Does it mean ignoring children completely? Of course not. But it does mean taking a step back from intensive parenting styles and letting kids, well, be kids. Parents are deciding to take a backseat – letting children be bored on the bus instead of handing them a tablet, letting them fail a class instead of doing their homework for them, letting them fight their own battles and come out stronger as a result.
GENTLE-ISH PARENTING
The gentle parenting philosophy has been saturating parents’ social media feeds for some years; the goal being to raise confident, independent and happy children through empathy, respect, understanding and discussion. But moving into 2025, gentle parenting continues to morph into a new form, with parental authority getting more of a look in.
Instead of focusing on punishment and reward, gentle parenting focuses on improving a child’s selfawareness and understanding of their own behaviour. But all too often it is confused with permissiveness… which is where gentle-ish parenting comes in.
Children need limits and a certain amount of structure to best function – and increasingly, parents want to be more consistent with discipline. Rather than feeling they have to accommodate children’s negative behaviour, they want to know they can set limits and follow through with consequences.
Importantly, today’s form of discipline is not about punishment: rather than spanking and timeouts, parents are instead putting strong boundaries and limits in place, giving children a roadmap for the behaviour that’s expected of them. Gentleish parenting leaves room for discussion – there’s an acceptance that modern children need to understand the “why” behind parental rules in order to comply with them – but there’s also an acceptance that there are times when parents have to stand firm and rule the roost.
ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS
As concerns about climate change and sustainability become even more pressing, eco-conscious parenting continues to grow in importance. Parents are becoming increasingly aware of their environmental impact and are striving to raise their children with values that prioritise sustainability. This trend encompasses everything from using ecofriendly nappies and baby products to choosing sustainable clothing, toys and even educational resources. Additionally, eco-conscious parenting involves making greener choices in day-to-day life, such as minimising plastic usage, opting for secondhand items, and supporting brands that prioritise ethical production and environmental stewardship.
Eco-conscious parenting involves not just teaching kids to care about environmental issues but also implementing the eco-forward ideas they bring home, courtesy of their peers and teachers. The aim is to empower children in their efforts to “be the change” whether that’s by putting them in charge of the recycling, helping them eat sustainably or allowing them to host a clothes swap for friends.
TECH-SAVVY PARENTING
With the rapid advancement of technology, techsavvy parenting is expected to continue evolving through 2025. Parents are increasingly relying on apps and devices to monitor their children’s wellbeing, whether it’s through smart baby monitors, AI-powered educational tools, or healthtracking wearables.
Technology is playing an essential role in making parenting more efficient and informed, offering parents data on their child’s sleep patterns, nutrition, or even emotional health. However, along with the benefits, tech-savvy parenting also requires parents to navigate the challenges of screen-time management and digital safety. Many parents are becoming more deliberate in teaching their children about responsible technology use, emphasising digital literacy and helping kids balance their onand off-line lives.
With this in mind, sharenting – posting the highs and lows of raising children online – is finally, definitely over. Growing concerns about AI-generated imagery, as well as facial recognition and the commercial use of personal data, mean that parents are becoming much more cautious about sharing content related to their children on social media. There’s also children’s digital footprint to consider: something sharenting creates, often long before the child can even understand what that means.
PERSONALISED EDUCATION
The education landscape is undergoing a transformation and, in 2025, personalised education options are expected to be more mainstream. Flexible schooling models, such as hybrid homeschooling, online learning platforms and micro-schools, are becoming increasingly popular among parents who want a more tailored approach to their children’s education. Parents are seeking out educational environments that cater to their child’s unique learning style, offering more individualised attention than traditional schools. This shift is partly driven by dissatisfaction with the one-size-fits-all approach of traditional schooling, as well as the increasing demand for digital skills in the modern economy.
In this new model, parents are taking a more active role in their children’s education: as with all the trends we’ve looked at for 2025, the main aim is to ensure kids grow up resilient and well-prepared for the future.