Most parents tend to follow
their instincts and do what seems natural to keep their child happy, healthy,
and safe. However even parents with the best of intentions can make mistakes in
the name of love or compassion. Remember, parenting has both short term and long-term
goals. The short-term goal is to provide for the health, happiness, and
well-being of your child. However, the long-term goal of every parent is to
build responsible, capable, and successful adults, and this is where some
parents drop the ball. Parents can often lose site of the fact that they are
building future adults.
Here then
are three timeless principles of parenting that nearly all child psychologists
would agree on.
1. Model appropriate behavior. The
importance of modeling appropriate behavior by parents cannot be overstated.
The majority of what children learn from their parents is not what we tell
them, it's what they see and hear. To a large degree, a child learns how to
interact with others and the world around him by watching his parents. The same
sex parent is normally the most powerful role model, so for little girls it is
mom and for boys it’s dad. If you want your child to treat others with respect,
then you must treat people with respect. If you want your child to stand up for
himself, then you must stand up for yourself. When it comes to parenting, our
actions always speak much louder than our words.
“Don’t
worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching
you.” Robert Fulghum
2. Listen
to your child. Someone once said that listening, not
imitation, is the highest form of flattery. In our hectic fast-paced world, so
many of us have lost the ability to truly listen. When we listen to what
someone is saying we are conveying to them that what they are saying is
important, and moreover that they are important. Isn't that an important
message we need to convey to our children. So as parents we need to listen when
we're tired, listen when the content seems silly or nonsensical, and listen
when we can barely stand to listen anymore. Listening will let your child know
that he/she matters
“The best
inheritance a parent can give his children is a few minutes of his time each
day.” O. A. Battista
3. Spoil
them with love. They are many ways of spoiling a child;
giving into their every whim, being overly permissive, and overindulging them
with material things. However, it is nice to know that it is not possible to
spoil a child with love. A parent cannot say, "I love you" too often,
you cannot hug a child too much, and a parent cannot overdue the words, “I am
proud of you. When it comes to genuine expressions of warmth and affection, it
simply is not possible to overdo it. The terms “I love you" and "I am
proud of you” are incredibly powerful and no parent should shy away from using
these two potent phrases.
“Parents
need to fill a child’s bucket of self-esteem so high that the rest of the world
can’t poke enough holes to drain it dry.” Alvin Price
Remember
there is no guarantee that following these guidelines will result in perfect
parents or perfect children, there is no such thing. Raising children is not
something we think of as especially scientific but parenting is one of the most
well researched areas in the entire field of psychology. It has been studied
for over 75 years, and the findings have remained remarkably consistent over
time.
Source:
Examiner.com
