It's the opposite on the rear. You can downshift three gears, and only upshift one. In practice, when giving a big input, it gets you either two or three, but I usually drop down one at a time anyway.
The front derailleur with Veloce brifters (what I know best), has about six/seven "larger" clicks going to the larger side of the chainring. There are only three "stop" positions going down (one for every other "larger" click, and not resettable other than by cable length). You need to be at least two clicks to the larger side, to hit a down position. That is, if you are one click "larger" than the closest down stop, and then choose to downshift the front brifter, it will bypass that closest stop and go to the next one (equal to three up clicks of movement). If you're two clicks "larger" than the closest down stop, and then downshift, it will stop at that closest stop (equal to two click of up movement).
So you have to think 2 to 1 when riding, and set up the larger chain ring such that you leave enough on the FD's upper limit screw to facilitate two "larger" stops on the big ring, plus the initial one, so three in total. Depending on your FD, that allows trim for the upper and lower portion of the rear cassette. Typically, once you find "good trim" (always a good thing) it will carry down to the middle ring. On the lowest ring, the FD's lower limit screw is the inner most trim setting. I guess reading all this, you need to experience it to make sense of all that, but that is how it works...