What It Takes To Be An Effective Parent | The Communication Blog

Sunday, September 4, 2011

What It Takes To Be An Effective Parent

By Orson Sawaguchi Xavier


Ideas about how to be the best possible parent differ quite a bit, even among experts. The truth is that all parents have to find their own approach based on what they believe in and what their children respond best to. Still, there are issues that most parents have to deal with at one time or another, and it can be helpful to look at some responses that often prove effective.

If you practice permissive parenting, you have to be prepared for some difficulties down the road. This is a parenting style where discipline, if present at all, is kept to a minimum. If you've ever seen noisy, rambunctious kids in a public place whose parents make no attempt to reign them in, you've seen an example of this parenting style. A very permissive upbringing, unfortunately, can create all kinds of problems for kids, especially as they get older. In order to fit into society -school, jobs, everyday social situations- people expect certain behavior and kids raised in very permissive homes often have trouble conforming. Being too permissive is an unhealthy extreme that results in children growing up with little sense of security.

When your kids do something well, go out of your way to point it out and praise them. Parents sometimes get into the habit of only noticing the mistakes their children make. Praising children for something well done is a way to encourage them in this area. You want to bolster a child's self esteem as much as possible, and praise is the best way to do this. It's not necessary to do this in an insincere way, as your kids will be able to sense this, but choose times when it's appropriate.

A mistake that many parents make is raising their children just like they were raised when they were young. Now, in some rare cases, this isn't a problem, but this is only if you had the ideal parents who made no mistakes. Many of us had parents that were unable to make good decisions in their attempts to parent us. The idea isn't to be different for its own sake, but to consciously choose areas where you could do better than your own parents. Usually, it is in the area of discipline that parents have problems, which is probably an area we should all work on.

A very bad mistake to make is to yell at your children as there are many other things you can do. We will all have bad days, which means occasionally we may raise our voices for children or lose our temper. There are many unwanted consequences that may occur if you do this on a regular basis. Consistent yelling at your children will desensitize them, causing them to expect you to yell just for them to notice you. It may be detrimental to your children to shout at them as they will pick up this habit and start shouting at other people including family and friends. Instead of yelling, speak very softly so that your children will have to quiet down to listen to what you say. Depending upon how your child is raised, and both of your personalities, you will have different outcomes. Your child's personality will dictate whether they have great self-control or need to be disciplined regularly. What you end up doing is taking a parenting skill that you want to learn and molding it to conform with the personalities of your children.

Probably the most essential things that you can do for your children would be to make certain they have the correct school items. Correct supplies like backpacks and school bags may go a long ways to keep the child pleased. Talk with your local school supply store today.




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