Tips for being a good parent

Parenting styles and tips
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Written By Poonam Singh

I am co-founder of toddlerjunction.com and Principal of Cambridge Montessori Preschool Bangalore.

Most children can be a little hard to deal with, your relationship with the child requires attention and you must look into it seriously. This article describes some tips for being a good parent.

You might notice that whenever you try to steal or take away any toy or candy from his hand, the kid mostly cries and throw tantrums. 

Good parenting helps to foster self-reliance, kindness, and cooperation. It also helps create and strengthen intelligence, and emotional quotient, while protecting the child from the influences of negative emotions like anxiety, depression, eating disorders, etc. 

Too many parents reach out unconsciously in response to their child’s behavior. They don’t follow up any of their instincts, nor are they conscious of how they are reacting to the situation. Children should never be hit on or slapped in the bottom. You should stop or hold them, but not hit them. 

The parent’s relationship with the child reflects a child’s actions and behavior. If your relationship is not good, they will not accept your teachings. It is the same as every other relationship in the world. We trust those with whom we have a good relationship. We trust them more, listen to their opinions, and most likely, are receptive to their thoughts and beliefs.

Your action matters

This is one of the most important factors. How you behave and how you deal and react every day with your relative environment has a major impact on your child as well. Your value system is what likely makes up the value system of your child but in his own way.

The child is watching you and if you notice, it most likely imitates the action of the parents. It is important to ask and have a check on your actions and not to react in the spur of the moment.

Tips for being a good parent

Set limits and don’t be too kind

As much as being harsh and rude to your child hurts his/her behavior, so does being too kind and easy on them. Set rules and make sure the rules are age-appropriate.

 It is also important to make your kids understand the reason why you are creating such rules for them. Too much love makes the child less effective, over-dependent, lower expectations, and have a materialistic mindset. 

Involve yourself in the child’s environment

If you want to significantly impact your child’s environment, you need to make sure that you are also involving yourself and giving some time to your child. 

If you just leave the child alone to do things on its own, it can be influenced by other people who make up their environment or lesser interactions will subsequently lessen their observation and understanding ability. 

If your child is doing homework, sit along with them and help them understand and interpret the lessons thought in school, so that they can have their own perspective towards the problem rather than having just one. 

Know when to not respond

As much as it is important to involve yourself in the child’s environment, so is not being involved in certain circumstances. The result? The child develops its own sense and understanding rather than relying on you for every decision. 

As long as they are having good behavior and not involved in anything dangerous, unnecessary interruptions and interferences should be avoided. 

Sometimes, rather than reacting to their bad behavior, ignoring them would naturally make them realize their fault and make them feel guilty, without hurting their emotions. Children are highly sensitive to emotions so it is important to know when to react and how to react. 

Modify your parenting based on how the nature of your child

Parenting styles are different and work differently for different individuals. The environment has a significant role in how the child is receptive to your parenting style. 

Have a look at how the child progresses with your actions and style of parenting. For example, if a kid is getting distracted easily, he can get irritable and argumentative. 

The parents have two options, either to unconsciously react and push him or make him understand before hurting his self-esteem. 

Tips for being a good parent

Fostering self-dependence 

Setting limits helps the child to realize what is wrong and develop self-control. Giving a certain degree of independence helps your child to create his own self-identity and develop a sense of self-direction. For being successful in life, both are important. 

It is natural for the parents to get in control of the child’s life and influence him to make decisions in a certain way. 

Parents think that it is good for the kid but instead, you are wiring them to be dependent and not confident in their own decisions. Children push for independence because it is part of human nature to not want to be dependent and have freedom of decision for their lives.

Staying consistent 

If your rules and beliefs vary day to day, the kid would not be responsive and accept it and would lead to misbehavior and aversion, which is completely your fault. The most important disciplinary tool for effective parenting is staying consistent with your rules and beliefs. The more your rules are made on wisdom and not from the ground of power, the lesser aversion you are likely to notice from your child. If you don’t stay consistent, your child will be confused and you can’t force them to be consistent.  

Stop being harsh or rude

Some parents think that being strict and rude is a better way of bringing up the child, but the reality is quite the opposite. Children who are hit and spanked on a consistent basis and face violence and harassment are most likely to fight and grow up to be bullies themselves. They lack compassion and empathy, disrupting their entire value system. There are better ways in which you can help the child take better actions and stop them from bad behavior, other than being aggressive or violent.

Respect your child’s views

The best way to make your respect and obedience is to respect them. You should complement and resp[ect your child whenever they do something. Pay attention to what they speak to you, even though it does not make sense. 

Treat them kindly and give them the attention that they seek. When you give your child the attention that they wish to get, they automatically learn to give attention when you want them to hear from you.

 This will help you to avoid turning mealtimes into unpleasant gatherings. Try to help your children and support them as much as you can. You should give the same responses and attention to your child that you would give to anyone else. Respect their opinion and they will respect and listen to you.

Don’t just impose rules, explain them 

Good parents have expectations that their child stays within the rules that they self for them to foster set control. But what most parents fail to do is to understand and explain the reasons for such rules. The mindset and experience that you have for setting up the rules are not evident for the kid. The rules are based on your judgments, experiences, and priorities, which the child is unaware of. 

If you explain the reason why you are setting up the rules, the child is most likely to understand and appreciate it. If you don’t give the necessary reason, the child tends to be averted and may even become less responsive. 

I am co-founder of toddlerjunction.com and Principal of Cambridge Montessori Preschool and DayCare Kaggadasapura Branch. I am also a Montessori certified teacher and have 5+ years of experience working with kids.

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