What can make a great parent?
A great parent is someone who strives to make choices in the best interest of the child.
What can make a great parent is not just defined by the parent 's actions, but additionally their intention.
A great parent doesn't need to be perfect. Nobody is perfect. No child is perfect either … keeping this in mind is essential when we set our expectations.
Profitable parenting is not about achieving perfection. Though it doesn't mean that we should not work towards that goal. Set very high standards for ourselves first and then our children next. We serve as role models that are important for them.
Top Ten Parenting Tips
Here are 10 tips that can help you be an even better parent, learn good parenting skills, and avoid bad parenting.
Some folks are not easy or quick.
It is unlikely that anybody is able to do them on a regular basis.
Nevertheless, even in case you only do a component of these tips in this parenting guide, you will be moving in the right direction if you keep working on them.
#1 BE A good Role MODEL
Walk the walk. Don't just tell your child what you want them to do.
The most effective way to teach is showing them.
Human is an unique species in part since we can learn by imitation. We are programmed to copy others' actions, understand them, and incorporate them into our personal. Children, particularly, watch everything their parents do very carefully.
Thus, function as the individual you would like your child to be - respect your child, show them positive behavior and attitude, have empathy towards your child's emotion - as well as your kid will follow suit.
#2: Love THEM And Show Through ACTION
Show your love.
There's simply no such thing as loving the child of yours too much. Loving them can't spoil them.
Just what you decide to do (or give) in the name of love may - things like material indulgence, leniency, low expectation, and over-protection. When these items are provided in place of real love, that's when you will have a spoiled kid.
Loving the child of yours may be as simple as giving them hugs, spending quality time with them, having family meals together, and also hearing your child's problems seriously.
Showing these acts of love is able to trigger the release of feel-good hormones like oxytocin. These neurochemicals can bring us a full sense of calm, emotional warmth, and contentment; from these, the child, will acquire resilience and not to point out a closer relationship with you.
#3: Practice Kind And Firm POSITIVE PARENTING
Infants are born with around hundred billion brain cells (neurons) with relatively few connections. These connections create the thoughts of ours, drive our actions, shape our personalities, and essentially determine who we are. They're "sculpted", strengthened, and created through life experiences.
Give your child positive family interaction, particularly in the early years. They'll 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. Use a tickle marathon. Go on the park. Laugh with the child of yours. Give them positive attention. Drive through an emotional tantrum with them. Solve an issue together with a positive mind-set.
These positive experiences create excellent neural connections into your child's brain and form the memories individuals that your child carries for life.
When it comes to discipline, it appears to be hard to remain positive, particularly when dealing with behavior problems. But it's possible by utilizing positive discipline and avoiding harsh discipline.
Being a great parent means you need to teach your child the morals of what's right and what is wrong.
Setting limits and being constant will be the golden rule to good discipline. Be firm and kind whenever you set rules and implement them. Focus on the reason behind the child's misbehavior. And allow it to be an opportunity for them to learn for the future in a good manner, rather than to get penalized for the past.
#4: Be a Safe HAVEN FOR The CHILD of yours
Let your child realize that you will always be there for them by being responsive to your child's signals and vulnerable to the needs of theirs. Support and accept your child as an individual. Be a safe and warm place for the child of yours to explore from and go back to.
Children raised by parents who are constantly responsive have much 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 importance 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 much better connection with the child of yours and your child will come for you when there's a problem.
But there's another reason for communication. You help your kid integrate different parts of their brain, a critical process in a child's development.
Integration is similar to the body of ours, in which different organs must coordinate and work in concert to have a trully healthy body. When various parts of the brain are integrated, they are able to work harmoniously as a whole, which means fewer tantrums, more good behavior, more empathy, and better mental well-being.
To do that, talk through troubling experiences. Ask your child to describe what happened and how they felt developing attuned communication.
You do not need to offer solutions. You do not need to have all the answers to become an excellent parent. Simply paying attention to them talk. Ask clarifying questions using words that are simple are going to help them make sense of the experiences of theirs and integrate their memories.
#6: Reflect on Your own CHILDHOOD
A lot of us wish to parent differently from the parents of ours. Even those who had a good upbringing and a thankful childhood may want to change several elements of how they were brought up.
But very often, when we open our mouths, we speak just like the own parents of ours did.
Reflecting on the own childhood of ours is an action towards understanding why we parent how we do. Make note of things you would like to change and think of how you would get it done differently in a genuine scenario. Attempt to be mindful and change the behavior www.parentinghowto.com of yours next time those issues come up.
Do not give up if you do not succeed at first. It takes practice, a lot of practice to consciously change one 's child-rearing methods.
#7: Pay attention to Your personal WELL-BEING
Parents require relief too.
Give consideration to your own well being to prevent parental burnout.
Oftentimes, things such as your own needs or maybe the health of your marriage are placed on the back burner when a child is born. When you do not take note of them, they will become bigger issues down the road. Take time to enhance the relationship of yours with your spouse.
Stressed-out parents are more vulnerable to fighting. Don't hesitate to ask for parenting help. To have 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 is going to suffer, too.
#8: Do not SPANK, NO MATTER WHAT
Undoubtedly, to some parents, spanking is able to bring about short-term compliance which occasionally is a much-needed help for the parents.
However, this method does not teach the child right from wrong. It only teaches the child to fear outside consequences. The child is then motivated to stay away from getting caught with inappropriate behavior.
Spanking the child of yours is modeling to your kid that he/she can resolve issues by violence. A child who is spanked, smacked, or maybe hit is more prone to fighting along with other children. They are more apt 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 oppositional behavior and delinquency, worse parent-child relationships, mental health problems, along with domestic violence victims or abusers.
There are an assortment of better alternatives to discipline that have been shown to be much more effective, like 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 the majority of parents, you would like the child of yours to do well in school, be productive, be independent and responsible, be respectful, enjoy good associations along with you and some, be caring and compassionate, and have a happy, healthy and fulfilling life.
But how much time do you spend working towards those goals?
When you are like the majority of parents, you most likely spend the majority of the time simply attempting getting through the day. As authors, Siegel and Bryson, point out in the book of theirs, The Whole Brain kid, rather than helping your child thrive, you spend most of time just trying to survive!
To not let the survival mode dominate the life of yours, the next time you're feeling frustrated or angry, step back. Consider what frustration and anger will do for you or the child of yours.
Rather, look for ways to turn every negative experience into a learning opportunity for them. Even epic tantrums can be transformed into invaluable brain-sculpting moments if you focus on teaching your child, not trying to control them.
#10: Take a SHORTCUT By utilizing Findings In Latest PSYCHOLOGY And NEUROSCIENCE RESEARCH
By shortcuts, I do not mean shortchanging the child of yours with tricks. What I mean is taking advantage of what is already known by scientists.
Parenting is among the most researched fields in psychology. Lots of parenting strategies, traditions, or practices have been scientifically researched, verified, refined, or refuted.
For best parenting advice for increasing a kid and information that are supported by science, here's one of my favorite science-based parenting guides, The Science of Parenting.
Making use of 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 a variety of effective parenting methods you could choose according to your child's temperament.
A very good example is employing 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 your child.
Naturally, you can additionally decide to use "traditional" or maybe "old school" parenting styles (e.g. punishing or spanking) and also may still get a "similar" outcome.
Differential susceptibility has found us that children with various temperaments react to the quality of parenting differently.
Those people who are more vulnerable to parenting quality will have much better outcomes under good parenting but even worse outcomes under bad parenting.
Those people who are less prone may "turn out fine" regardless of how tough their parents treat them. Though it doesn't imply those practices are good. These children are simply fortunate. They can thrive despite poor parenting, not because of it.
Why take a possibility with sub-par parenting practices if you can use well-researched, better ones?
The importance of parenting can't be underestimated. Taking science-based parental advice might not be the easiest way to parent. It might require more work on the part of yours in the temporary but can save you lots of agony and time in the long run.
Final Thoughts On Parenting
The great thing is, that although parenting is hard, it's also really rewarding. The bad part will be the rewards usually come later than the effort. But if we try our best today, we will eventually reap the rewards and also have nothing to regret.
To Happy Parenting!