Karmactive Team
Parents are adopting a different approach to handle daily battles with their children. FAFO (F*** Around and Find Out) parenting lets kids experience natural results of their choices instead of constant parent intervention.
“Natural consequences are exactly that — natural, not parent-created,” explains Julie Romanowski, a Vancouver parenting coach. She points to a clear difference: letting a child feel cold when refusing a jacket teaches differently than threatening “no dessert” for the same behavior.
The term has gained significant popularity on social media, with over 500,000 TikTok posts using #fafo. Media personality Kylie Kelce recently shared how this worked with her own child’s jacket refusal. “He opened the front door, took her outside for just less than a minute,” she explained on her podcast. “She comes back, says ‘It’s cold out there’ and puts her jacket on.” No arguments needed.
But experts urge careful consideration. “Part of the challenge is children facing snowplow, helicopter, lawnmower parents who don’t allow any sense of self and autonomy,” notes Vanessa Lapointe, a Surrey-based psychologist. “But there’s a balance that needs to be struck.”
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Based on the principles of FAFO parenting, common learning situations might include:
– Not wearing weather-appropriate clothing leads to feeling cold
– Not following camp rules means missing out on activities
– Refusing protective gear results in natural discomfort
– Taking responsibility for personal choices
The method differs from gentle parenting, which topped parenting trends in recent years. While gentle parenting focuses on emotional validation, FAFO emphasizes direct experience as the teacher. Gen X parents particularly connect with this approach, having been called the “f around and find out generation” or the “latchkey generation.”
Safety remains non-negotiable. Parents must intervene in dangerous situations like touching hot stoves. For highly sensitive children, Lapointe warns that failing “is going to feel like death to them.” Working parents also face practical limits – as Lapointe notes, most parents can’t just send their kids to school without a jacket.
The term “safetyism” appears in parenting literature to describe the modern culture of overprotecting children. Mel Robbins, whose parenting book “The Let Them Theory” topped Publishers Weekly’s bestseller list, advocates: “Let your kids fail, let them be rejected, and let them live their lives.”
The trend marks a shift from hovering to guided independence. As parenting expert Romanowski explains, true natural consequences help children understand cause-and-effect relationships. However, she emphasizes that success requires distinguishing between real natural consequences and parent-imposed threats. As one of the first influencers to use the term notes, FAFO parenting never involves risk or danger – it simply allows safe, natural lessons to unfold.
