Permissive is exactly how I would explain my parents parenting style throughout my childhood years. Not the permissive style that Regina George's mom from Mean Girls takes in this video here. My parents took a more subtle approach.
For me, I would like to think, that I turned out just fine and scraped by with a few minor bumps and bruises. My parents never thought that grounding me would be beneficial. This may be to the fact that both my parents were rebels and their parents punishing them only forced them to break the rules even further. This leaves me to believe that my parents not punishing me lead myself to think that I have my parents trust and I wasn't willing to break that. My parents seemed to think this technique worked great for me so they carried it onto my sister three years later. This didn't seem to go over as smoothly with her as it did for me. My sister continues to be the rebel that my parents were afraid to find from punishing. She is very different than me and this just shows that maybe there are different ways that suit each person and not just one single "just right" method. How did your parents raise you? Do you believe that theres a technique for every personality? (blog for 4/25 discussion)
This is exactly how my relationship with my parents is! I thought I'd call that authoritative, but I'm thinking its more on the permissive side, seeing as I have never been grounded either. And I have an older sibling who turned out much like your younger sibling. But as for me, I guess it is the same deal with trust and not willing to break it. Some times I wonder if they trusted me a little too much though. I personally think we can all turn out just fine no matter how we are raised. Some of us just may change the way we raise out own children based on what we did and didn't like about our own upbringing. I know that's what my parents did. They had a strict upbringing and My and my brother had a not so strict childhood. No matter how you are brought up, you will be how you will be. Even two siblings can turn out different with the same upbringing. I like to say there are different strokes for different folks, sometimes certain ways work and sometimes they don't. Sometimes it's up to trial and error to find the right technique.