Positive Parenting

Parenting or child rearing promotes and supports the physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. As against the prevailing traditional view of children and the common social sentiments in the 1990s that “children should be seen and not heard”, renowned Psychologist Alfred Adler and Psychiatrist Rudolf Dreikurs asserted that “children deserve to be treated with dignity and respect”. Their radical statement and belief paved the way for the development of “Positive Parenting”, a revolutionary concept in parenting.

5 important “W”s of Parenting

1) WHAT is Parenting?

A way of providing care, support, and love in a way that leads to a child’s overall development in physical, emotional, social, spiritual, and intellectual areas. Parenting is a lifetime job and does not stop when the child grows up.

2) WHY Parenting?

A child spends his/her critical years with parents observing them closely and imitating their words, actions, etc., and later becoming an individual mainly from that learning. Parenting is necessary to meet the developmental needs of children and no parenting or bad parenting will have long-lasting negative effects on the children’s mental and physical development.

3) WHEN Parenting?

Both arguments, parenting begins before conception and parenting begins when a child is in the mother’s womb are very much valid. In fact, parenting is a lifelong commitment where you will need to love, care, protect, nurture and raise your child into a good human being.

4) WHO are the Parents?

The most common caretakers in parenting are the biological parents. However, a surrogate parent may be any blood-related or nonblood-related person such as an older sibling, a step-parent, a grandparent, a legal guardian, an aunt, an uncle, other family members, a family friend, government or society who performs the role in child-rearing or upbringing – child’s overall development.

5) HOW to become a good Parent?

By analyzing “9” alphabets of PARENTING, one can easily understand the world of Parenting and practice to become a good parent.

• (P) – Avoid All Time Pressure …Help to develop and maintain standards in the study, eating, playing, sleep, relationship, health, discipline, etc.
• (A) – Never Advice, instead be a Guide … Parental guidance is key to the child’s development. Effective parents observe, recognize and assess their child’s individual genetic characteristics, then cultivate their child’s strengths.
• (R) – Be the Role Model, practice what you preach … As your child follow your example and not your advice, lead by example, and practice what you preach. As children spend their critical years with parents observing and imitating their words and actions, learn bad or good habits from those who are their first teachers/trainers.
• (E) – Encourage and avoid negative criticism … Avoid negative criticism which will damage the child’s self-confidence and self-esteem, instead spot and encourage the talents, skills, and special activities of your child enabling them to develop to fully grown personality.
• (N) – Practice clear NO/YES and maintain … Children benefit from parents who practice a combination of warmth and limits with clear NO/YES rules and maintain the same together with giving valid reasons for “NO” to children for their easy comprehension.
• (T) – Togetherness, invest quality time … Spending quality time with children/family builds strong family bonding which is the key to happiness. It is a proven fact that no amount of money or success can replace the happiness you enjoy while being with your loved ones.
• (I) – Imagination, appreciate and allow creativity … As Imagination helps in the development of social, emotional, creative, physical, lingual, and problem-solving skills in children, appreciate and allow their creativity. Imagination and creativity lead to innovation.
• (N) – Don’t push to be Number 1, encourage to work for their potential … Giving every child a chance to reach their full potential is the best gift any parent can do for the child’s overall development.
• (G) – Teach the joy of giving/sharing … Children should imbibe the virtue of ‘giving/sharing’ for a fulfilling future that helps them make new friends, maintain relationships, play cooperatively, and learn to negotiate and cope with disappointments in the long run. They may also begin to understand that if they share, their gesture may be reciprocated.

What is Positive Parenting?

As people presume, positive parenting is not fluffy parenting – parenting that doesn’t offer consequences to poor choices or discipline to misbehaviours. On the contrary, positive parenting is anything but fluffy and holds children to realistic standards by using clear expectations and empowering children to become the resilient and capable children you hope them to be.

Positive Parenting Tips

• Recognize the privilege …Understand and accept that children are God’s blessing and not your future investments.
• Give unconditional – true love … Have unconditional love to your children no matter what happens. Unconditional love doesn’t mean unconditional acceptance of bad behaviour.
• Have realistic expectations… Having realistic expectations about children in terms of their behaviour, academics, health etc., will avoid frustration and disappointment for both parents and children.
• Don’t compare … Every child is unique and special. Don’t compare your child with others as it teaches them to envy instead of being generous.
• Practice open healthy communication … Open communication bonds the family. It will keep you open to sharing thoughts and feelings, coax expression out of your children and foster a safe home environment in which all members of your family can feel comfortable and secure in their relationships.
• Children – let them be … Let your children be themselves and allow them to grow up themselves as that will help to reach their potential.
• Setting boundaries helps thrive… Clear boundaries keep the children be safe, communicate what to expect and they find comfort in that. Boundaries also help children to grow and develop well.
• Be a good listener … As against the traditional belief of children should be seen and not heard, children need parents who are active listeners which helps them to be expressive and develop self-confidence in them.
• Maintain healthy family relationships and environment … Healthy family relationships help to ensure natural growth within the family. In a loving environment, it’s easy for parents to instill discipline, confidence, and character in their children.
• Be attractive & accessible – be a Role Model/Friend/Encyclopaedia … Be the role model to your child for them to become what you want them to be by being their accessible and approachable friend and encyclopedia who find answers to their queries.

Parenting Styles

As the way we raise our children directly influences their future, we need to be aware of our parenting style as it can either nurture or harm the child’s development. Four major Parenting styles in practice are:

• Authoritative … As a well-known clinical and developmental psychologist, Baumrind described as the “just right” style, it combines medium-level demands on the child and a medium-level responsiveness from the parents. It offers a give-and-take atmosphere in parent-child communication and both control and support are balanced. These children score higher in terms of competence, mental health and social development than those raised in permissive, authoritarian, or neglectful homes.
• Authoritarian … Very rigid and strict approach places high demands on children with very little responsiveness to them. This style has a non-negotiable set of rules and expectations strictly enforced with the use of severe punishments. These children would be less cheerful, moodier, poor in academics, more vulnerable to stress and show passive hostility.
• Permissive … Child’s freedom and autonomy are highly valued and parents rely primarily on reasoning and explanation. Parents are undemanding and have little punishment or rules. Children are generally happy but sometimes show low levels of self-control and self-reliance because they lack structure at home.
• Uninvolved … Being emotionally or physically absent, parents have little to no expectations from the child and have no communication. Being unresponsive to a child’s needs, have little to no behavioural expectations. Children with little or no communication with their own parents tend to be victimized by other children and may exhibit deviant behaviour and suffer in social competence, academics, and psychosocial development.

To know more about the topic and for counselling related enquiries contact the author Er C M Shamsudheen, Vice Principal / Faculty / Counsellor @ Krupa School of Counselling and Psychotherapy Kannur & Wayanad, Resource Person @SRC Kerala, Motivational Trainer, Social & Educational Activist @ 9840161777; chanchukka@yahoo.com.