Being a parent is one of the most complete experiences a person can have, but that doesn't mean it's easy. It doesn't matter what age your children are - the work is never done. To be a good parent, you need to know how to make your children feel valued and loved, while teaching them the difference between right and wrong. At the end of the day, the most important thing is to create a welcoming environment where your children feel they can thrive and grow as confident, independent and caring adults. If you want to know how to be a good parent, get on your way by starting reading this article.
Steps
Part 1 of 3: Love your Son
Step 1. Give your child love and affection
Sometimes the best thing you can give a child is love and affection. A touch of warmth or a thoughtful hug can allow the baby to realize how much you truly care about him or her. Never forget how important physical contact is when it comes to your child. Here are some ways to show love and affection:
- A sweet cuddle, a little encouragement, an appreciation, a nod of approval, or even a smile can increase your children's confidence and well-being.
- Tell him you love him, every day, no matter how mad he makes you.
- Give him lots of hugs and kisses. Get used to love and affection from birth.
- Love him unconditionally: don't force him to be who you think he should be to deserve your love. Let him know that you will always love him, regardless of the circumstances.
- Prefer experiences over toys. Even if children like gifts, an abundance of expensive toys and electronic devices could become vices. Keeping the baby in the real world, teaching him the value of feelings over money, are very important things. Especially, it's a very common thing for a busy parent to go overboard with gifts to make up for a lack of time together. Toys may entertain the baby for a while, but your children will never feel loved and considered as much as they would with an attentive parent who takes care of them.
Step 2. Praise your children
Praising children is an important part of being a good parent. You want children to feel good about themselves and be proud of their accomplishments. If you don't give them the confidence they need to take on the world on their own, they won't feel empowered to be independent or adventurous. When they do something good, let them know that you have noticed and that you are very proud of them.
- Emphasize their accomplishments, talents, and good behavior, while minimizing their flaws. This is to show that you see only the best in them.
- Get in the habit of praising your kids at least three times as much as you do with negative feedback. While it's important to let your kids know when they're doing something wrong, it's just as important to help them build a positive sense of self.
- If they are too young to fully understand, praise them with respect, applause and lots of love. Encouraging them on everything from potty training to getting good grades can help them lead a happy and successful life.
- Studies have shown that it is better to praise children more for their hard work and commitment than to praise their natural talent. If they learn the value of hard work, they will respond more enthusiastically to future challenges and will be more willing to persevere.
- Avoid overly general phrases like "Good job". Instead, praise him in a more specific and descriptive way that lets him know exactly what you're appreciating. For example, "Thank you for putting the toys back after playing with them."
Step 3. Avoid comparing your children to others, especially siblings
Each child is unique and individual. Celebrate everyone's differences and instill in each one the desire to pursue their interests and dreams. Not doing this can create an inferiority complex in the child, the idea that he can never be good enough in your eyes. If you want to help him improve his behavior, talk about achieving his goals in his own terms, instead of telling him to act like his sister or neighbor. This will help her develop a sense of self instead of an inferiority complex.
- Comparing one child to another can cause sibling rivalry to develop. You want to cultivate a loving relationship between children, not a competition.
- Avoid favoritism. Studies have shown that most parents have favorites, but most children believe they are favorites. If your kids are arguing, don't take sides with just one, but be fair and neutral.
- Overcome the natural tendencies of the birth order by making each baby responsible for himself. Dropping older siblings to care for younger siblings can create rivalries, while empowering each one encourages individuality and knowing how to rely on oneself.
Step 4. Listen to your children
It is important that communication with your children works both ways. You shouldn't be there just to enforce the rules, but also to listen to your kids when they are having a problem. You need to be able to express interest in your children and get involved in their life. However, you should create an atmosphere where your children can come to you about a problem, big or small.
- Listen actively to your children. Watch them as you talk to them and show that you are following them by nodding your head and responding with positive phrases like "Wow", "I understand" or "Continue". Listen to what they say rather than thinking about what you have to answer. You might say something like "From what you say, it looks like you're not very happy with the list of things you should be doing this week."
- You can also take the time to talk to your children every day. It can happen before falling asleep, at breakfast, or on a walk after school. Treat this time as if it were sacred and avoid checking your phone or getting distracted.
- If your child wants to tell you something, be sure to take it seriously and leave everything you are doing or agree a time to talk when you can really hear it.
- Don't underestimate your child's intelligence. Children often have opinions to share or can sense when something is wrong (or right). Take the time to listen to their point of view.
Step 5. Make time for your children
Be careful not to choke them, though. There is a big difference between protecting someone and imprisoning them within your too inflexible requests. You have to make them feel like your time together is sacred and special, without forcing them to spend time with you.
- Turn off your tech devices when spending time with your kids. Put your phone aside so you can focus your attention on the baby without being tempted to reply to messages, check your email, or log into social media.
- Spend time with each child individually. Try to split the available time evenly if you have more than one child.
- Listen and respect your child and what they want to do with their life. Remember, though, that you are their parent. Children need boundaries. A child who has been allowed to behave as he pleases and your every whim has won will have to struggle in adult life when he finds himself having to obey the rules of society. You are NOT a bad parent if you don't allow your kids to have everything they want. You can say no, but you should either provide a reason for this decision or offer an alternative. "Why do I say so" is not a valid reason!
- Have a day off to go to the park, theme park, museum or library according to their interests.
- Participate in school activities. Do your homework with them. Go to interviews with teachers to get an idea of how they are doing in school.
Step 6. Be present at important events
You can also have a hectic work schedule, but you need to do everything you can to participate in the important moments in your kids' lives, from their plays to their high school graduation. Remember that babies grow fast and that they will grow up right before you know it. Your boss may or may not remember that you missed that meeting, but a child will certainly remember that you haven't been to their play. While you don't actually have to drop everything for your kids, you should at least try to always be there for the milestones.
If you were too busy to be there on your child's first day of school or another important milestone, you may regret it for the rest of your life. And you don't want your child to remember graduation day as a time when mom or dad were too busy to show up
Part 2 of 3: Properly Maintain Discipline
Step 1. Set reasonable rules
Enforce those rules that apply to every person who leads a happy and productive life - not rules of your ideal person. It is important to set rules and guidelines that help the child develop and grow without them being so strict that the child feels they cannot take a step without making a mistake. Ideally, the child should love you more than he fears the rules.
- Clearly communicate the rules. Children need to understand the consequences of their actions well. If you give them a punishment, make sure they understand why and what the fault is; if you cannot specify the reason or even explain why they failed, the punishment will not have the discouraging effects you desire.
- Make sure you not only set reasonable rules, but also enforce them reasonably. Avoid excessively harsh and ridiculously severe forms of punishment for minor infractions or anything that involves physically hurting the child.
Step 2. Check your temperament as much as possible
It is important to try to be calm and rational when explaining the rules or putting them into practice. You want your children to take you seriously, not fear you or think you are unstable. Of course, this could be a challenge, especially when children have misbehaved or cornered you, but if you always feel ready to raise your voice, you need to take a break and put yourself aside before talking to your parents. sons.
We all lose patience and sometimes feel out of control. If you have done or said something that you will regret, you should apologize to your children, letting them know you made a mistake. If you act like that behavior is normal, then they will try to mimic it
Step 3. Try to be consistent
It is important to always enforce the same rules and to resist attempts at manipulation by your child to make you make exceptions. If you let your child do something he shouldn't just because he reacts with tantrums, then this shows that the rules are fragile. If you find yourself saying "OK, but just for today …" more than once, then you need to work on maintaining more consistent rules for your kids.
If your child perceives the rules as fragile, they will have no incentive to stick to them
Step 4. Face united with your spouse
If you have a spouse, then it is important for the children to think of you as a united front - two people who both say "yes" or "no" to the same things. If your kids think their mom will always be willing to say yes and their dad says no, then they'll think one parent is "better" or more easily manipulated than the other. They should see you and your spouse as one-of-a-kind: you will never find yourself in a difficult situation if you agree on the basics of raising children.
- This does not mean that you and your wife should always agree 100% on everything to do with children. But it does mean that you have to work together to solve problems involving children, instead of competing with each other.
- You shouldn't argue with your spouse in front of children. If they are sleeping, discuss quietly. Children can feel insecure and fearful when they hear their parents arguing. Additionally, they will learn to argue with others the same way they feel their parents are relating. Show them that when people disagree, they can discuss their differences peacefully.
Step 5. Maintain order with your children
Children should feel a sense of order and logic in managing the home and their family life. This can help them feel safe and at peace and live a happy life inside and outside the home. Here are some ways you can keep order with your kids:
- Set up and follow some sort of family schedule so your kids know what to expect. You decide the time to go to bed and the time to get up, the time of meals during the day, the same for every day and also the time to devote to study and play. Take care of your personal hygiene, such as showering and dental care, and teach your children to do the same.
- Put restrictions like bedtime and curfew so they understand they have limitations. Doing so will in effect help their perception of being loved and that their parents care for them. Of course they might rebel against these rules, but deep down they will appreciate having their parents care to guide and love them.
- Encourage their sense of responsibility by assigning chores to do, and as a reward for these "jobs" grant some sort of privilege (money, curfew extensions, extra time to play, and so on). As a "punishment" if they do not, they will find the corresponding privilege revoked. Even the little ones can understand this concept of merits / consequences. As your children grow up, give them greater responsibilities by proportionately increasing the merits for accomplishing them or the consequences otherwise.
- Teach what is right or wrong. If you are religious, bring them closer to the doctrine you follow. If you are an atheist or an agnostic, teach them your morals about things. In one case or another, don't be hypocritical otherwise get ready for the moment when your children will point out your lack of consistency.
Step 6. Criticize the child's behavior, not the child
It is important to criticize his actions, not the child himself. You want your child to learn that he can accomplish what he wants through his behavior, instead of being criticized as a person. Let him understand that he has a way to improve his behavior.
- When the child acts in a harmful and spiteful way, tell him that such behavior is unacceptable and suggest alternatives. Avoid statements like "You are bad". Instead, try to say something like, "It's wrong to be nasty to your little sister." Explain why the behavior was incorrect.
- Try to be assertive but kind when you point out what they did wrong. Be stern and serious, but not angry or mean, when you tell them what you expect.
- Avoid public humiliation. If they misbehave in public, set them aside and berate them privately.
Part 3 of 3: Helping the Child Build Character
Step 1. Teach children to be independent
Teach your kids that it's okay to be different and that they don't have to follow the crowd. Teach them to distinguish between right and wrong from an early age and they will be able to make their own decisions more often, rather than listening to or following others. Remember that your baby is not an extension of yourself. The child is an individual placed under your care, it is not a chance to relive your life through him.
- When children get old enough to make independent decisions, you should encourage them to choose which extra-curricular activities they want to do or which friends they want to play with. Except that an activity is very dangerous or a playmate has a bad influence, you should let your child choose for himself.
- A child may have an opposite predisposition, namely introverted while you are extroverted, for example, and will not be able to make the model and style you choose for them their own.
- Don't get them used to doing things for them that they can learn to do for themselves. While getting them a glass of water before bed is a nice way to get them to fall asleep faster, it doesn't make it a habit.
Step 2. Be a good role model
If you want the child to be well-behaved, you should embody the behavior and character that you hope he will be able to adopt and continue to live according to the set rules. Show him the example as well as the verbal explanations. Children have a tendency to become what they see and hear if they don't make a conscious and concerted effort to break the mold. You don't have to be a perfect person, but you should try to do what you want them to do too: try not to sound self-righteous by recommending your children to be nice to others when they will always find you in a heated argument at the supermarket.
- It is perfectly okay to be wrong, but you should apologize or let the child understand that the behavior is incorrect. You might say something like: "Mom didn't want to scream. She was just very worried." This is always better than ignoring that you have made a mistake, because it will show the child how to change this behavior.
- Do you want to teach children to do charity? Get involved and take your kids with you to a canteen or homeless shelter and help serve meals. Explain why it is necessary to be charitable, so that they understand why they should be charitable too.
- Teach children to do chores by setting a schedule and getting help. Don't force your child to do anything, but ask for their help. The sooner they will learn how to help you, the more willing they will be.
- If you want your children to learn to share, you need to set a good example and share your things with them.
Step 3. Respect your child's privacy as you would like him to respect yours; for example, if you teach your kids that your room is out of their bounds, respect their room too
They must feel that, in their room, no one will rummage through their drawers or read their diary. This will teach them to honor their own space and respect the privacy of others.
- If your child catches you snooping around, it may be a long time before they trust you again.
- Let them keep their personal space and accept that it's normal that they sometimes have secrets, especially as they get older. You may find some sort of compromise, letting them know they can count on you if they ever need help.
Step 4. Encourage children to lead a healthy lifestyle
It's important to make sure your kids eat as much healthy food as possible, exercise, and get enough sleep every night. You should encourage positive and healthy behavior without pushing too hard or forcing them. Let them come to these conclusions for themselves as you help them see the meaning and importance of a healthy life.
- One way to encourage them to exercise is to start a sport early on, so that they find a passion that is also healthy.
- If you start explaining to your child in too much detail that there is something that is unhealthy or that they shouldn't do, they may feel bad about it and feel reproach from you. Once this happens, he will no longer want to eat with you and will feel uncomfortable - this may cause him to hide junk food from you.
- It is important to teach them healthy eating habits from an early age. Offering candy rewards to children can create a bad habit because, once they grow up, some may believe that obesity is rewarding. When they're young, start introducing them to eating healthier snacks. Instead of chips, try crackers, grapes, etc.
- The eating habits they learn as children are the ones they will continue to have as adults. Also, never force your kids to finish their food if they tell you they're not hungry. This can continue throughout their lives, causing them to finish whatever, even excessive, portion is on their plate.
Step 5. Emphasize moderation and responsibility when it comes to alcohol consumption
You can start introducing speech even when the children are small. Explain to them that they will have to wait until they are old enough to enjoy a drink with friends and talk about the importance of driving sober. Failing to discuss these issues right away sometimes contributes to dangerous experimentation if they don't understand.
Once your kids get to an age where they and their friends start drinking alcohol, encourage them to talk about it with you. You don't want them to fear your reaction and end up doing something unpleasant, like driving drunk because they're too scared to ask for a ride
Step 6. Try to treat "sex" honestly
If your child has any questions about sex, it is important to answer their questions calmly and without embarrassment. If you avoid doing this, it can leave them uninformed and full of shame, things that will be bad for him as he gets older.
- Take his age into account. It is recommended that young children talk about their anatomy and explain the concept of conception during their childhood. Address puberty, intimacy, and possibly sexual intercourse when they are between 5 and 8 years old. Address the topic of contraception, the positive and negative aspects of sex during the pre-adolescent period. Although teens are quite reserved, communicate with your teen boy so he knows he can count on your support if he needs your help with any problems.
- If your baby accidentally sees you having sex, stop immediately and ask him out. Talk to him after the fact, honestly. He's probably just as embarrassed as you are.
- Prevent your kids from being embarrassed or ashamed of masturbation. Contrary to what some believe, masturbation has no negative impact on the baby. If your child tells you about it, answer his questions openly and try not to get embarrassed.
Step 7. Allow your children to experience life for themselves
Don't always make decisions for them: they must learn to live with the consequences of the choices they make. After all, they have to learn to think for themselves sometime. It is best that they start when you are there to help them minimize the negative consequences and accentuate the positive ones.
They need to learn that every action has a consequence (good or bad). By doing so, you help them become good decision makers and solvers, so that they are prepared for independence and adulthood
Step 8. Let your kids make their own mistakes
Life is a great teacher. Do not be too quick to save the child from the results of his actions if the consequences are not overly severe. For example, getting a small cut can be painful, but it's better than leaving them unaware of why sharp objects should be avoided. Know that you cannot protect your children forever and that it is better to learn the lessons of life sooner than later. While it's hard to stand back and watch your baby make a mistake, this will benefit you and your baby in the long run.
- You shouldn't say "I told you so" when the child learns a life lesson about their shoulders. Instead, let him draw his own conclusions about what happened.
- Be there when your child makes a mistake, be it slight or serious. By not preventing every little problem, but by providing helpful guidance to help them overcome the consequences, you can help them develop their problem-solving skills and endurance skills. Try to be a support during this process; just avoid doing it for them or isolating them from the real world.
Step 9. Give up your vices
Gambling, alcohol and drugs can compromise your child's financial security. Smoking, for example, almost always induces health risks to your child's environment. Secondhand smoke has been linked to several respiratory disorders in children. It could also contribute to the untimely death of a parent. Alcohol and drugs could also put your baby's health at risk.
Of course, if you like to drink wine or a couple of beers from time to time, that's perfectly fine, as long as you represent a healthy pattern of drinking. Behave responsibly while doing this
Step 10. Don't place unreasonable expectations on your child
There is a certain difference between wanting your child to become a responsible and mature individual and forcing him to be in a certain way according to your idea of perfection. You shouldn't push the child to get perfect grades or become the best player on his soccer team; instead, encourage good study habits and a sporting spirit and let him put all the effort he is capable of into it.
- If you act expecting only the best, the child will never feel up to it and may even rebel in the process.
- Don't be the person that the child is afraid of because he feels he will never be up to you. You must be a cheerleader for your child, not a drill sergeant.
Step 11. Know that a parent's work never ends
Although you may think that you have already raised the child into the person he has become over the years, in reality this is far from true. Parenting will have a permanent effect on your baby and you should always give him the love and affection he needs, even hundreds of miles away. While you will not always be a constant daily presence in your child's life, you should let your children know that you will always take care of them and that you will be there for them no matter what.
Your kids will keep asking you for advice and will still be interested in what you say regardless of their age. As the years go by, you can not only improve your parenting technique, but you can also start thinking about how to be a good grandparent
Advice
- Reflect often on your growth. Identify possible mistakes that "your" parents made and try to avoid them being passed down between generations. Each generation of parents / children gets a whole other set of new successes and / or mistakes.
- Do not share your past misbehavior with your children because they will confront you and therefore expect less from them.
- If you are trying to quit a bad habit on your own, look for specific groups that can help overcome it. Always get help, try to have someone you can talk to when you start missing them. Remember that you are not only doing this for yourself, but also for your children.
- Don't live your life through them. Let them make their own choices and live their life however they want.
- Satisfy your need to be loved, but value your children's needs against those of others. Don't neglect them because of your love interests. Make your children a priority when you see other people, and don't put them in danger by bringing home someone you don't know well yet. Children need to feel safe and, above all, loved. If you suddenly exclude them, no longer paying attention to their needs, so that you can dedicate yourself sentimentally to a new person, your children will grow up insecure and with a sense of abandonment. Everyone needs love, but not at the expense of your children's emotional balance. All of this also applies to older children.
- A teenager about to become an adult needs the support of a parent now more than ever. Never think that simply because they are between eighteen and twenty-one you can afford the luxury of letting them go their own way. However, try not to interfere unless absolutely necessary. In short, it is not easy even for a parent.
Warnings
- Don't be afraid to act like a "parent". Do your best, try to be friends with them, but remind them that you are a parent, not a co-worker.
- You don't stop being a parent when your children grow up. Being a good parent is a lifelong duty. But keep in mind that once they become adults, the decisions they will make are their own, including the consequences.
- Don't follow the usual stereotypes of how a parent should behave according to your culture, race, ethnic group, family, or any other significant factor. Don't be convinced that there is only one way to raise a child.
- Don't be abusive towards them. Doing so will only cause a lot of resentment and will still come against you. Not to mention the fact that you can be arrested and have your children separated (if more than one) and placed in foster care.
