The “FAFO” Parenting Style Is All About Letting Kids Figure It Out

Several different parenting styles have made the rounds recently — gentle parenting, helicopter parenting, and co-pilot parenting to just name a few. Each family molds and mends their version of one of these to fit their family and their children’s individual needs. Still, there's one parenting style called “FAFO Parenting” that surfaced recently — and many parents are saying that it actually makes a lot of sense.

What is FAFO parenting?

FAFO parenting — which stands for “f*ck around and find out parenting” — is the act of having your kids experience the natural consequences of their actions without getting too involved. One mom on TikTok, @hey.im.janelle, explains this parenting style further, noting that she believes the subgenre of FAFO parenting falls into the “authoritative parenting” genre.

“So I practice authoritative parenting, but within what I would consider a subgenre that I would call "fuck around and find out" parenting, they f**k around, then they find out. They get their natural consequences and get to figure out the way through them,” she explains before giving a real-life example from her kids’ own lives.

“This weekend, I took my kid camping for the first time with the Cub Scouts, and we had a great time. But at one point it was raining pretty hard. It was raining all day. It was real wet, and the kids were all just playing around at the campsite, and my son decided he didn't want to wear his rain jacket anymore,” she explained.

What is a natural consequence?

She explained to her son that he would probably get wet and feel uncomfortable if he didn’t wear his coat. She also told him that she would not be getting him a new shirt. He noted that he understood what she was telling him.

“Of course, 10 minutes later, he was not fine. He got to decide for himself when he'd had enough. He got to decide for himself when he needed to go find a new shirt and stop playing and change,” she said.

“And we pretty much do that with everything that there's not a safety concern. If there's a safety concern, obviously, they're not ‘finding out’ from that, but they decide to get real adventurous when they're climbing a tree and climb higher than they're comfortable with. They get to figure out a way down. Obviously, if they're panicking, they'll help them. And after they've worked on a solution for a minute, I'll help them figure out a way down, but I'm not getting them out of that scrape. They got to figure it out themselves. F**k around, find out.”

I’ve practiced this exact kind of parenting with my own daughter. Natural consequences are a great way for your child to learn without shame or embarrassment.

Parenting expert Janet Lansbury emphasizes the importance of allowing children to experience the natural consequences of life rather than pressuring them into a way of behaving that helps them conform to our demands.

Her responsive, child-led approach helps parents figure out a sustainable way to encourage kids to naturally trust themselves and their decisions while also guiding them to properly focus.

“A toddler learns discipline best when he experiences natural consequences for his behavior, rather than a disconnected punishment like time-out,” Lansbury writes in a blog post on her website. “If a child throws food, his or her mealtime is over. If a child refuses to get dressed, we don’t go to the park today. These parental responses appeal to a child’s sense of fairness. The child may still react negatively to the consequence, but he does not feel manipulated or shamed.”

When you think about it, it just makes sense!