What can make a great parent?
A good parent is someone who strives to make choices in the best interest of the kid.
What makes a great parent is not only identified by the parent 's actions, but also their intention.
A great parent doesn't need to be perfect. Nobody is perfect. No child is ideal either … keeping this in mind is essential when we set the expectations of ours.
Successful parenting isn't about achieving perfection. Though it does not mean that we should not work towards that goal. Set very high standards for ourselves first and then the children of ours second. We function as important role models for them.
Top 10 Parenting Tips
Listed here are 10 tips for a terrific parenting experience, including how to stay away from bad parenting, and be a better parent.
They are not all that simple or fast.
Not everyone can do them continuously.
However, even if you only do part of these suggestions in this parenting guidebook, you'll be moving in the correct direction in case you continue working on them.
#1 BE An excellent Role MODEL
Walk the walk. Do not just tell your child what you want them to do.
The best way to teach is to show them.
Human is a special species in part because we are able to learn by imitation. We are programmed to copy others' actions, understand them, and incorporate them into our personal. Children, particularly, watch everything the parents of theirs do very thoroughly.
Thus, function as the person you want your child to be - respect your child, demonstrate to them good attitude and behavior, have empathy towards your kid's emotion - as well as your child will follow suit.
#2: Love THEM And Show them Through ACTION
Show the love of yours.
There's simply no such thing as loving your child too much. To love them can't spoil them.
Just what you choose to do (or give) in the name of love may - things as material indulgence, leniency, low expectation, and over-protection. When these things are given in place of love that is real, that's when you'll have a spoiled kid.
Loving your child can be as simple as offering them hugs, spending quality time with them, having family meals together, and also listening to your child's problems seriously.
Showing these actions of love can cause the release of feel good hormones such as oxytocin. These neurochemicals are able to provide us a deep feeling of contentment, emotional warmth, and calm; from these, the kid, will develop resilience and also not to mention a closer connection with you.
#3: Practice Kind And Firm POSITIVE PARENTING
Babies are born with around hundred billion brain cells (neurons) with comparatively few connections. These connections create our thoughts, drive the actions of ours, shape the personalities of ours, and basically determine who we're. They are created, strengthened, and "sculpted" through life experiences.
Give the child of yours positive family interaction, especially in the beginning years. They will then be equipped to experience positive experiences themselves and also offer them to others.
But if you give the child of yours negative experiences, they will not have the kind of development needed for them to thrive.
Sing that silly song. Have a tickle marathon. Go to the park. Laugh with your child. Allow them to have positive attention. Ride with an emotional tantrum with them. Solve a problem together with an optimistic attitude.
These positive experiences produce good neural connections into your child's brain and form the memories individuals your child carries for life.
With regards to discipline, it seems difficult to remain positive, especially when dealing with behavior problems. But it's possible by using positive discipline and avoiding strong discipline.
Being a good parent means you need to teach the child of yours the morals of what is right and what is wrong.
Setting limits and being constant is the golden rule to discipline that is good. Be firm and kind when you establish rules and implement them. Focus on the reason for the child's misbehavior. And allow it to be an opportunity for them to find out for the future in a good way, rather than to get penalized for the past.
#4: Be a Safe HAVEN FOR The CHILD of yours
Let the child of yours realize that you will always be there for them if it is responsive to your child's signals and vulnerable to their needs. Support and accept your child as a person. Be a safe and warm place for your child to explore from and return to.
Kids raised by parents that are constantly responsive tend to have better emotional regulation development, interpersonal skills development, along with emotional health outcomes.
#5: Talk with YOUR CHILD And Help THEIR BRAINS INTEGRATE
Most of us already know the value of communication. Talk to the child of yours as well as listen to them thoroughly. By keeping an open line of communication, you'll have a better relationship with your child as well as your kid may come for you when there is an issue.
But there is another reason for communication. You help your child integrate different parts of their brain, a critical process in a child's development.
Integration is similar to our body, in which different organs must coordinate and work in concert to have a trully healthy body. When various regions of the brain are incorporated, they are able to work harmoniously as an entire, meaning less tantrums, much more good behavior, much more empathy, and much better psychological well-being.
To do that, talk through troubling experiences. Ask your child to describe what happened and how they felt to develop attuned communication.
You don't need to offer solutions. You do not have to have all of the answers to be a good parent. Just listening to them talk. Ask clarifying questions using simple words are going to help them make sense of the experiences of theirs and integrate the memories of theirs.
#6: Reflect on Your own personal CHILDHOOD
A lot of us want to parent differently from our parents. Even those who had an excellent upbringing and a thankful childhood may want to change several elements of how they were brought up.
But really frequently, when we open our mouths, we speak just like our own parents did.
Reflecting on our own childhood is a step towards understanding the reason we parent how we do. Make note of things you'd like to change and think of just how you would do it differently in a genuine scenario. Attempt to be mindful and change your behavior next time those issues come up.
Don't give up in case you don't succeed at first. It will take practice, a lot of practice to consciously change one 's child-rearing strategies.
#7: Pay attention to Your own WELL-BEING
Parents require relief too.
Pay attention to your own well being to prevent parental burnout.
Oftentimes, things including the own needs of yours or the overall health of your marriage are placed on the back burner when a kid is born. If you do not take note of them, they are going to become bigger issues down the road. Make time to strengthen the relationship of yours with your spouse.
Stressed-out parents are more vulnerable to fighting. Don't hesitate to ask for parenting assistance. Having some "me time" for self care and stress management is crucial to rejuvenate the brain.
How parents take care of the child of theirs physically and mentally can make a big difference in the parenting of theirs and family life. If these two areas fail, the child of yours will suffer, also.
#8: Do not SPANK, NO MATTER WHAT
No doubt, for some parents, spanking is able to bring about short term compliance which sometimes is a much needed help for the parents.
However, this method does not teach the child right from wrong. It only teaches the kid to fear external consequences. The kid will be motivated to avoid getting caught with behavior that is inappropriate.
Spanking your child is modeling to your kid that he/she can resolve issues by violence. A child who is spanked, smacked, or maybe hit is much more prone to fighting along with other children. They're more likely in order to become bullies and to use verbal/physical aggression to solve disputes.
Later on in daily life, they are also far more apt to result in delinquency and oppositional behavior, even worse parent-child human relationships, mental health problems, and domestic violence victims or abusers.
You will find an assortment of better alternatives to discipline that have been shown to be much more effective, such as positive discipline (Tip #3 above positive reinforcement and).
#9: Keep Things In Perspective And remember YOUR PARENTING GOAL
What's the goal of yours in raising a child?
If you're like most parents, you want the child of yours to excel in college, be productive, be responsible and independent, be respectful, enjoy positive relationships along with you and some, be to care and compassionate, plus have a happy, healthy and also satisfying life.
Though how much time do you spend working towards those goals?
If you're like most parents, you probably spend most of the time just trying to get through the day. As authors, Siegel and Bryson, point out in their book, The Whole-Brain child, instead of helping your child thrive, you spend most of time just trying to survive!
To not let the survival mode dominate your life, next time you feel angry or frustrated, step back. Think about what anger and frustration can do for you or the child of yours.
Instead, find ways to turn every negative experience right into a learning opportunity for them. Even epic tantrums could be transformed into priceless https://parentinghowto.com/ brain-sculpting moments if you focus on teaching your child, not trying to control them.
#10: Take a SHORTCUT Through the use of Findings In Latest PSYCHOLOGY And NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH
By shortcuts, I do not mean shortchanging the child of yours with tricks. What I mean is to take advantage of what is already known by scientists.
To parent is among the most researched fields in psychology. Lots of parenting techniques, practices, or traditions have been scientifically researched, refined, verified, or refuted.
For optimum parenting advice for raising a child and info which are backed by science, here is among my personal favorite science based parenting books, The Science of Parenting.
Using medical knowledge is of course not a one-size-fits-all strategy. Every kid differs. Even within the best parenting style, there are able to be many different effective parenting methods you can choose according to your child's temperament.
A very good example is using spanking to discipline. There are numerous better alternatives, time-in, reasoning, e.g. redirection, etc. You can choose a non punitive discipline method that actually works best for the child of yours.
Naturally, you can also decide to use "traditional" or maybe "old school" parenting styles (e.g. punishing or maybe spanking) and might still buy a "similar" outcome.
Differential susceptibility has shown us that kids with various temperaments react to the quality of parenting differently.
Those people who are more susceptible to parenting quality is going to have better outcomes under great parenting but worse outcomes under poor parenting.
Those people who are less prone may "turn out fine" no matter how strong their parents treat them. But it does not mean those practices are good. These children are merely lucky. They could thrive despite bad parenting, not due to it.
Why take a chance with sub par parenting practices when you can use well-researched, better ones?
The importance of parenting cannot be underestimated. Taking science based parental advice may not be the simplest way to parent. It may require much more work on the part of yours in the short term but can help you save lots of time and agony in the long term.
Final Thoughts On Parenting
The great thing is, that although parenting is difficult, it is also really rewarding. The bad part is the rewards typically come later than the hard work. But in case we try our best today, we will ultimately reap the rewards and also have nothing to regret.
To Happy Parenting!