Good Parent | Education today

When I was pregnant with my first child, I was inundated with mommy blogs, prenatal websites, and other parents explaining what to expect, how to be the best parent, and how to you can harm your child’s life. It all caused panic, and I didn’t give birth. Fast forward to holding my first born in my arms – I was full of excitement and possibilities, but when I was told we could go home with our baby, the anxiety is starting to come back: Do I know what I’m doing? What if I do this wrong? What did I get into?

The process of parenting is both exciting and terrifying. We are given more information than ever before about what we do. necessary work to ensure the success of our children – It’s tummy time! Milk milk! Inspiring, but not too much! Eat this, not that! Read all the time so their brains don’t atrophy! Get your kids involved in team sports today! If you don’t, your child will fail! – it can make any parent feel like they are not good enough.

Now for some good news.

Most of what you read and what other people tell you to do doesn’t matter.

I am a child psychologist, researcher, and professor at the University of Arkansas and a mother of four. Being a mother has allowed me the life experience of knowing the importance of modern parenting, but being a child psychology researcher has given me an insight into what is important at the end of the day. So when my colleague, psychologist Tim Cavell, asked me to help him finish a book he was writing about “good” parenting, I jumped at the chance. opportunity.

What do we mean by a “good parent”?

We want to champion “normal” parenting, because most parents are able to support their child’s development. In fact, the main task of maintaining the parent-child relationship is time. We argue that this is done by building on three key assumptions: target, healthyand sstructure.

1. Purpose

Parenting goals relate to how parents fulfill their role as parents. This is different from parents’ goals for their children or their children’s future – which, we argue, can often affect the parent-child relationship. But parents can benefit from setting parenting goals, such as how they want their relationship with their child to look and their want to do it themselves when they are adults. If you find that you often argue with your child, you may want to start here to determine what you want from the parent-child relationship.

2. Health

We’ve already heard the collective eye roll from some parents reading this: “But who time take care of their health if you’re a parent?” We know. But hear us out. We focus on general health (eg, physical, mental, relationship) but we also focus on parent health.

We draw from the science of emotion, with the reality of how emotions work, to teach parents about strategies to increase their health and well-being. As parents, we may be quick to get angry when our children do something unsafe, but we encourage you to take a break and find out what that anger is hiding behind. Are you really angry, or is that anger hiding fear or depression?

Taking a break to dig deeper into our thoughts gives us some valuable information that we can then share with our children. Additionally, we introduce the concept and function of mindfulness and discuss the value of mindful parenting practices. If we are serious about what we do (while keeping our parenting goals in mind), we can work to strengthen that relationship instead of failing to fulfill it over time.

3. Copies

We define style as how parents organize their home and family. It includes things like rules, routines, responsibilities, and rituals. Each promotes good parenting practices and helps prevent parenting stress during times of crisis and chaos.

For example, rules help establish what is important to the family. Having clear rules to communicate how children and parents interact with each other or contribute to a family. Families that lack routines or little ways to do things around the house (which means mornings or after school, for example) can end a happy and fulfilling life. to a lot of hurt feelings or arguments that arise.

Roles in the family help to establish clear boundaries between parents and their children. Responsibilities in the household can change over time but recognizing that parents shoulder the weight of decision making for the family helps reduce confusion about stress. of children. In addition, things like traditions for important events can help to create a sense of love and specialness in the family.

If the principle is established, the work of the parent is done through three main features of a social relationship: to acceptcontaina in charge.

1. Accept: AgreeingIdeally, this is the default mode of parenting. Accepting children means taking the time to see them as they really are; it is faith, love, and respect the whole child; and that means giving a solid message of existence and constant effort to understand them. In this way, the children are a little unsure of their position with you. For a child, yes it’s also the most important thing when they become their own people.
2. Have got: There are steps parents can take to reduce a child’s likelihood of delinquency. If you are a parent who has grown up with the idea of ​​when their child is being restrained, we recommend a helpful handbook on how to parent using calm words, warnings, and including penalties (eg, time off). We also add a fourth section, called “reconnecting,” which deals with repairing (after recording) the sense of the parent-child relationship if it has been damaged by a disciplinary meeting. (like vacation time). We also understand that the overall quality of the parent-child relationship is limited by the parents’ efforts to care for their children. The solution for difficult-to-manage children is selective learning discipline! What do we mean by selective learning? In our opinion, parents should think about the most important ways to communicate (what they necessary get their head out of bed for) rather than feeling like they need to fix every little problem. For example, you should not talk in a low voice or your child’s behavior, even if the relationship is difficult… in the end, emotions will not predict your child’s behavior. However, you need to get up to deal with acts of anger or violence, as research shows these things be able to lead to major problems along the way.
3. in charge: The last pillar is leadership, which is about how many parents actively communicate and express their values ​​and give children a healthy, kind, generous, and philanthropic perspective that is necessary follow. We’re not telling you to tell your child, but there are more important values ​​that promote kindness, giving, or friendship (for example) than hair, the clothing, or board areas.

So what does this have to do with “good”?

Well, this means that it doesn’t matter if your child is the best dressed or the best athlete. It doesn’t matter if you correct your child every time they make a rude comment in public. It doesn’t matter if you answer each of their questions correctly (I know I already learned why the sky is blue, but it’s long enough, OK?) or eat them in the suitable food or to join everyone after school. activities…

The main thing is maintenance target of having a parent-child relationship before anything else you do. This should take care of yourself (healthy) and you set yourself up for success by doing it building in your life encourage good times and minimize chaos (dinners, if possible; important family discussions; opportunities for special occasions and traditions). It means you love your child unconditionally (to accept) while placing clear expectations that should be corrected if harmful or negative (enter). Finally, it means being a good leader (in charge) by simply living life according to good values. That doesn’t mean you have to do everything right all the time (a how about you will do each of these things according to the different aspects of you and your child); it’s just “good” most of the time. Rest easy knowing that “good” is enough.

For more information, see our book, Good parenting.