Parenting is all about being THERE for your child. However, THERE is not so easy to understand. Your role is not just to monitor your children and discipline them whenever the occasion arises. You have to get involved in their lives as a mentor, as a guardian, as a friend, who doesn’t just correct them when they do something wrong, but who channels positive behaviors and guides them to AVOID disciplining them. You have to instill human values which will represent their foundation as they go through life, learning and passing forward what you taught them. Parenting is hard work – it’s exhausting, complicated and often frustrating; that’s why it’s so important to be active and involved in your family life.
WHAT DOES IT MEAN TO BE AN ACTIVE PARENT?
Active parenting is a concept that revolves around the idea that any behavior should be driven by a goal. Completing these goals helps build a behavior pattern. This means that instead of acting like an authoritarian parent, you are more of an authoritative one, encouraging and reinforcing positive behavior through the completion of goals. The goals have to be both meaningful and achievable, like the goal of getting good grades. As a parent, you have to encourage practices like studying or doing the homework, while discouraging others like getting distracted during the study. Active parents believe in social interactions as a fundamental part of their relationship. The notion that the parent knows best is challenged – instead, parents have to analyze their behavior towards their children and how their behavior affects them. In the end, even though there is a big age gap between parents and children, it’s important to nurture respect and to look at things from a child’s point of view. Put yourself in your children’s shoes. Think of how you behaved at that time and of what others demanded of you at the same age. And, most importantly, figure out if you are realistic in your demands. Sometimes, it’s not that the child is unwilling to follow your guidelines, but he/she doesn’t have the capacity to do it. When trying to solve problems, ask questions – don’t just ask yourself, but also your children. Ask them why did they do it, how does that make them feel, what were they trying to achieve and how do they think it can be solved. This is a better resolution than reacting to negative behavior, because you are giving your children the possibility to analyze their own actions and to learn how to distinguish between right and wrong. If you would only engage in disciplining them, they would be more likely to remember the punishment than the deed. You have to use your ability and knowledge together with your children’s capacity, rather than shying away from a dialogue. WHAT ARE THE MOST IMPORTANT THINGS THAT AN ACTIVE PARENT CAN TEACH HIS/HER KIDS?
When you are looking to form relationships, there is always a list of traits you are attempting to find in the other person, like intelligence, a sense of humor, loyalty, respect, common interests etc. Soon however, you realize that you have to make a selection and stick to those that matter the most. These rules also apply when it comes to child education – you want them to learn what matters the most and not spend time on useless battles, so pick them wisely. Some of the best traits your children can learn are: responsibility, courage, self-esteem and social skills. For every action there is a reaction and children need to learn from a young age that their conduct has consequences that they need to learn. When there are siblings within the family, it’s fairly common to pass the blame, but active parenting is all about preventing them from pointing fingers to other people than themselves. You can’t always be there to take the hit, because rather than protecting your children, you are distancing them from the concepts of independence and individuality. Courage is one of the most important things you can teach them, not just in terms of them having it, but also when it comes to learning the true meaning of the word, since it’s so often distorted in our society. Courage means not giving up to peer pressure when it means going against your own beliefs and trying harder, instead of reeling in the pain of your defeats. It’s a fundamental virtue that every child needs. Self-esteem goes hand in hand with the courage. While courage means trying without ever giving up, self-esteem is about finding the strength to gain your courage and believing that you can indeed do it. Social skills are what will ultimately help your child bond with others. Life, in great part, is about team work, about fostering relationships and forming friendships – if you don’t develop your skills to get to know people and cooperate with them, you might always be the outcast. Parents have to step in and not allow their children to hide like an ostrich in the sand, but instead carry out conversations with them at any time, any place. Sure, not all children are communicative – they are all unique in their own ways, with different tempers. But encouraging them towards that direction of openness helps later on in life. HOW CAN YOU BE AN ACTIVE PARENT IN EVERYDAY LIFE?
Active parents need to put an emphasis on the cognitive behavioral changes. Positive behavior needs to be singled out, so that it gets reinforced, while the negative behavior needs to be reprimanded, so that children can make the difference between right and wrong. There is a saying that it’s easier to build strong children than to fix broken adults. This is a challenging and demanding world we live in, with hurdles around every corner. Children need to be guided, instead of being allowed to get carried away, especially because they are so vulnerable at that stage. Such challenges include drug & alcohol use, sexuality, death and violence, just to mention a few. Instead of being taboo subjects, they need to be explained in a sensitive and emphatic manner. HOW CAN CHILDREN KNOW THEIR BOUNDARIES?
The best way to communicate the house rules to your children is by having them written down and pinned on a fridge or on any other visible spot. This practice shouldn’t be new to them, since it’s similar to the school rooms where their rules are displayed. Find time to explain them, ensuring that they understand what’s expected of them. Try not to fall into the trap of the boring lecture, if you don’t want the information to enter through one ear and exit through the other. Let them know the consequences of crossing the boundaries – sometimes it’s enough to just ask them not to do a certain thing, without mentioning what would happen if they disobey. The simple fact that they know that something happens when they break the rules could be enough. Communicating with your kids also helps avoid the scenario where they would do something they weren’t supposed to, claiming that they didn’t know that it would make you upset. HOW CAN THEY BECOME RESILIENT?
Resilience is the ability to keep going, even though time and time again you are slammed to the ground. The best ways to do that is by showing them love and appreciation. If children feel that they have a purpose, that there is someone who cares for them, they are more hopeful and have a higher self-esteem, learning to solve problems on their own and fix their mistakes. Or, if they can’t be fixed, they will at least be able to learn from them, creating realistic goals and learning how to focus on things they can’t control, rather than aiming for the impossible. It’s important that your children are aware that your love for them doesn’t stop the moment they do something wrong, otherwise they will feel that they can’t live up to the parents’ expectations. Accept them with their own traits and don’t see them as a continuation of your own persona. Another way in which you can teach resilience is by giving them choices which require their logical and intuitive thinking. Even a question as simple as: “Would you like rice or mashed potatoes for dinner?” helps, because you are building the grounds for a problem-solving mentality. Give them the nudge to find their strengths – they will take it from there. WHAT’S THE BEST WAY TO DEAL WITH THEIR MISTAKES?
Don’t let your children victimize themselves. Don’t let them blame the Universe for their bad luck or another person, when things don’t go the way they planned. The first question that pops into their heads is almost always “Why me??”, but it’s one that they should avoid at any cost, because wrong questions give wrong answers. There is nothing they can learn from it; instead, a question like: “What did I learn from this experience?” can prove to be a positive experience which gives room to interpretations and conversations. Children look up to you – you are their best model when it comes to showing them how to overcome mistakes. Point out your own, mentioning the questions you asked yourself and how you responded to them. Reinforce the positive outcome that this mentality had. Avoid any kind of sarcasm when correcting your kids, because you will just reinforce a negative mentality. Mistakes are part of our lives and not only they can’t be avoided, but they shouldn’t be – otherwise, we would never learn. Don’t let them think that the world defines them – what matters is where they are in life and where do they want to get. [cta id=’2866′]
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