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Parenting. Everyones got an opinion. But which way is the right way?

Ally Langdon and Australian parenting expert Dr Justin Coulson team up with ten brave sets of parents with very different parenting styles, putting their methods to the ultimate test in the raw and confronting new series, Parental Guidance.

In search of Australias best parenting style, opinionated parents with diverse parenting techniques will take turns assessing each others style through a series of the toughest challenges ever attempted. They will confront methods that divide opinion, cause spirited debate and will even be uncomfortable for some.

From helicopter parents to tiger parents, free-range and routine parents to extreme authoritarians, they will all show how they raise their families while trying to influence everyone else that their parenting style is best.

Do you smack your child? Would your child go off with a stranger? How do you deal with discipline? Do you let your child run free? Every Australian parent will be comparing and asking whether their methods are right, and what sort of parent they are.

Parental Guidance takes us behind the closed family doors of parenthood, and how we ourselves were parented, to find out how to do it right, right now? When it comes to modern-day parenting, is anyone really nailing it?

Parenting style: Strict

Parents: Andrew (39) and Miriam (41)

Children: Luke (12), Grace (10), Tim (5)

Hometown: NSW

Andrew is a Christian pastor. Miriam works part-time and is the primary home keeper. Andrew and Miriam and their children have strong faith and enjoy holding traditional gender roles in the home and in life. They are a parent-led household.

Andrew and Miriam grew up happily in the country (Armidale, NSW) with strict parents, the parenting style they have continued with their own family.

Andrew and Miriams Strict parenting style:

Parenting style: Nature

Parents: Liadhan (45) and Richard (67)

Children: Miriam (12), Hannah (11), Esther (9), Eva (7), Danny (5)

Liadhan and Richard have five children together. Liadhan grew up in Adelaide and has two adult children from a previous relationship. Richard is a former teacher who emigrated to Australia from England 40 years ago and has four adult children from a previous relationship.

They both parented their children who are now adults in a strict style and are now against strict parenting, so they practise the nature parenting style. Liadhan home-birthed all five of their children and is a voracious reader of philosophy on parenting.

Liadhan and Richards Nature parenting style:

Parenting style: Attachment

Parents: Lara (42) and Andrew (39)

Children: Raphael (7), Chaya (5)

Hometown: VIC

Lara is a stay-at-home mum, a former dancer, dance journalist and drama teacher. Andrew is a performing arts physio, and theyve been married for 15 years.

Their parenting style is attachment, and they raise their children using the circle of security. They play with the kids constantly and particularly love to perform with them. They indulge their kids creativity wherever possible.

Lara and Andrews Attachment parenting style:

Parenting style: Routine

Parents: Brett (50) and Tony (49)

Children: Ajay (9), Gyan (9), Taz (9), Jagan (9)

Hometown: VIC

Brett and Tony have two sets of twins who live by their routine parenting style.

Brett is a primary school teacher and Tony is a social worker. Quite amazingly, both sets of twins were born on the same day through different Indian surrogates. They refer to the four boys as quads.

Brett and Tony were born and bred in Bendigo, a town that really accepts them. They both had a great childhood and upbringing. They met in high school and were friends for 10 years before having a relationship, and their Nans were also friends.

Brett and Tonys Routine parenting style:

Parenting style: French

Parents: Yann (43) and Donna (40)

Child: Harper (7)

Hometown: NSW

Yann and Donna live a European lifestyle with their daughter Harper. Yann is a project manager and Donna is a general manager.

Yann grew up in Paris (French Algerian) and Donna in Baulkham Hills (Australian Indonesian). Yann was raised in a classic French style and Donna was raised in a Tiger style and now finds the Tiger style very triggering. They call their style Nouveau French, being different from classical French in that it is not as strict and more affectionate.

Yann and Donnas French parenting style:

Parenting style: Tiger

Parents: Kevin (44) and Debbie (41)

Children: Mimi (12), Leo (10)

Hometown: NSW

Kevin is in technology and Debbie is a stay-at-home mum (accountant by trade). Debbie quit her job a year ago to help Mimi prepare for her scholarship exams. They met in Australia after moving here independently from Taiwan in their late teens.

Debbie says she adopted the Tiger style because she was Tiger-parented. She felt loved and supported; her mother was always there. She wanted the same for her kids. They believe they are at the moderate end of the Tiger spectrum, giving their children a lot of love and affection.

Kevin and Debbies Tiger parenting style:

Parenting style: Home School

Parent: Deb (46)

Children: Jess (16), AJ (15), Ty (13), Cooper (11), Fletcher (9), Lulu (7)

Hometown: QLD

Deb home-schools all six of her children. She is a huge advocate for home schooling, and heavily involved in the online home-school community.

Debs Home School parenting style:

Parenting style: Helicopter

Parent: Rachel (35) and Sam (35)

Children: Gracie (7), Ellsie (5)

Hometown: QLD

Rachel is a full-time mum, personal trainer and parenting podcaster Am I A Bad Mum? Sam is a former NRL player for the Brisbane Broncos and also a podcaster We are Human delves into mental health issues in elite athletes.

While Sam and Rachel enjoyed some fame during his NRL career, they find parenting is the great equaliser, saying, You still have to wipe bums and clean up vomit.

Rachel and Sams Helicopter parenting style:

Parenting style: Free Range

Parent: Penny (35) and Daniel (37)

Children: Sebastian (9), Julian (6), Zahra (2)

Hometown: Newcastle, NSW

Penny works part-time and Daniel is in sales. Both are from Newcastle in NSW and have good relationships with their parents.

They say you need a tribe to be a free-range parent because they always forget things and other parents help them out.

Penny had a similar upbringing to the one shes giving her kids and Daniel had the opposite. His parents gave him very little freedom and said no to all opportunities and adventures. He says his parents were always afraid of what would happen to them, having lived in Beirut prior to coming to Australia.

Penny and Daniels Free Range parenting style:

Parenting style: Disciplined

Parent: Rob (42) and Sioux (42)

Children: Hudson (9), Fletcher (7)

Hometown: Barossa Valley, SA

Rob teaches high school and Sioux teaches primary, so everyone gets up and goes to school at the same time. Theyre a very active and energetic family. Rob and Sioux have built a home gym in the backyard and the boys are heavily involved in sport. Rob plays cricket with them every day, mornings and after school.

Rob and Sioux set the rules and what they say goes. Consequences is a massive word for them.

Rob and Siouxs Disciplined parenting style:

ALLY LANGDON

Ally Langdon is one of Australias most respected journalists and co-host of Channel 9s breakfast show TODAY alongside Karl Stefanovic.

She began on TODAY with Karl on January 4, 2020 in what became the biggest news year in modern memory, starting with bushfires that rolled into COVID-19, economies in freefall, Black Lives Matter protests, the Beirut explosion, the US election and then ending the year with American politics in turmoil.

Ally previously co-hosted Weekend TODAY with David Campbell in 2019, combining her presenting commitments with her 60 Minutes role as a reporter.

She joined60 Minutesin 2011. Among her achievements include stories she has filed from Somalia in the midst of a brutal civil war, venturing into the raging heart of one of the most active and dangerous volcanoes on earth and coming face to face with Grizzly bears in the Canadian wilderness

Ally moved to Channel 9s flagship current affairs program after nine years in the Sydney newsroom, where she frequently travelled the globe to cover major stories. She has also presented the 6pm 9News Sydney bulletinand filled in on TODAY, co-anchoring the networks coverage of the Queensland flood disaster and reporting for the telethon that raised more than $10 million for the victims.

In 2010, while in South Africa for the FIFA World Cup, Langdon was the only Australian journalist to make it into Cameroon to cover the plane crash that killed six Australian mining executives.

At home, she played a key role in Channel 9s award-winning coverage of the Australian federal election and hosted the prime-time documentary A Royal Engagement when Prince William and Kate Middleton announced their plans to marry. Other major news events Langdon has covered include the drug wars in the Mexican town of Juarez, the bombing of the Australian embassy in Jakarta, and the return to Balibo in East Timor with the families of the five Australian newsmen killed during the Indonesian invasion in 1975.

Ally wrote the book The Child Who Never Was The Tegan Lane Story (released in 2007) after covering the inquest into the disappearance of the baby born to former water polo champion, Keli Lane. In December 2010, Lane was convicted of the babys murder.

Ally was also co-host of the 2019 Vision Australias Carols by Candlelight with David Campbell.

She lives in Sydney with her husband Michael and their young boy Mack and daughter Scout. She is also an Ambassador for R U Ok?, the Mirabel Foundation and Gidget Foundation.

DR JUSTIN COULSON

Dr Justin Coulson is one of Australias most trusted parenting experts. Over the past decade he has helped innumerable families with his six books about raising children.

Struggling with his own family relationships, Justin returned to full-time study in his late twenties, completing a psychology degree from the University of Queensland and then earning his PhD in Psychology from the University of Wollongong.

Now the focus of his life is his family and helping other families flourish. Justin has written six books and is a four-time bestselling author. He hosts the No. 1 parenting/family podcast in the country, Happy Families, is an occasional columnist for The New York Times, and appears regularly in all of Australias major news outlets.

Justin is an Honorary Fellow at the Centre for Positive Psychology in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Melbourne and he is also a consultant to the Australian Governments Raising Children Network, the Office of the e-Safety Commissioner, Life Education, Beyond Blue, Intel Security and the Alannah and Madeline Foundation.

Justin and his wife Kylie are the proud parents of six daughters, and they live in Brisbane, Queensland.

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Meet the cast of PARENTAL GUIDANCE 2021 - TV Blackbox