There’s no doubt about it that parenting is one of the hardest jobs in the world! It can also be the most confusing, the most wide-ranging and the most distressing job for some parents.
Children are not very easy to take care of, no matter what age they are. We all know how unique they are, and how different their personal needs are. Amidst the tantrums, the moods, the refusal to be disciplined and the various stages of development, it becomes very difficult for mommies and daddies to stay positive all the time.
However, it is only through positivity that children can be taught properly. The more negative we become in the struggle to be the perfect parent, the more adversely it affects the children. The age-old ideas about being strict disciplinarians are long gone; these days, the only way to both understand and teach children is by being a positive parent.
The rules of positive parenting aren’t very hard to understand, but they take a lot of practice and patience to master over the years.
- Find the Balance
A good parent is neither too hard on the children, nor too lenient. Positive parenting falls somewhere in the between – a balance that is different for every child and every family. Being a balanced parent means that you neither say “No” to everything they ask for, nor do you readily give in to their every whim.
Balance also means that you aren’t always hard on your children, that you don’t control their every move or that you don’t place too many restrictions on their life. However, it also does not mean that your kids can do anything they want to without any guidance or any restrictions. The sweet balance in between is where every parent should be.
2. Show, Don’t Tell
Another very important rule that parents always forget is that children learn by watching, not by listening. If you want them to follow your rules, you need to be the role model in their lives. You can’t yell at them and not expect them to yell back at you; if they see you lie to other people, you can’t teach them to be truthful.
To be a positive parent, it is crucial that you be the positive person you want your children to become. Show them a role model they can follow instead of making them listen to mere words.
3. Don’t Scream or Yell
This is one of the most basic, yet one of the most difficult, rule to follow. Whatever the situation is, it is never okay to scream at your children, or use loud negative words. If you are using a loud voice, be assured that not a single word will go into their heads. On the other hand, your words will only be effective if you remain calm and rational.
Your children might be frightened the first few times that you scream at them, but it won’t work later as they grow up. You might be able to scare them into submission as children, but yelling and screaming will surely backfire on you at one point. What is needed, instead, is that you find the correct tone of voice so that your children listen to what you have to say – a tone that’s neither so friendly that they can overlook and nor so loud that it scares them.
4. Use Less Negative Words
We often use phrases like “People are going to think you are a bad child if you don’t listen to me” or “Do you want everyone to think you are a naughty kid?” These phrases actually have a very negative impact on our children’s minds, even when the effect isn’t very obvious.
Instead, use positive words when you are trying to discipline your children or trying to teach them good habits. As an alternative of saying “Don’t be bad”, say “Let’s show people what a good child you are” or “Do this and everyone will know how good you are”. This might seem a very small change to make, but this subtle replacement of words will definitely act as positive reinforcement for your children.
5. Spend Time with Them
Kids don’t just need you to provide for them and discipline them; they crave quality interaction with their parents. The best way to become a positive parent is to actually spend some one-to-one time with your children, doing something you both enjoy.
This doesn’t have to be a lot of time, but it has to be consistent; your child should have something to look forward to every day. Only half an hour every day is fine if you spend it together by giving them your complete attention. Children don’t want an absent parent who simply appears to admonish them, discipline them and punish them. They’d respond better to a parent who is with them through good times and bad, and this doesn’t only mean the daily chores that you go through together.
To be a positive and an impactful parent, it is therefore more than crucial that every parent spends quality time with their children.
6. Be Consistent in Your Rules
Rules are meant to be broken, but you need to be quite firm when it comes to the basic rules in your household. Ideally, there shouldn’t be a lot of rules in your home, but the ones that you make should be followed consistently.
The rules should be relatively simple ones, something your kids can follow through. A regular bedtime, a no-dessert-until-you’ve-eaten-vegetables rule, a limit to screen time every day – you don’t need the rules to be more complex than these.
The simpler the rules, the easier will it be for your kids to follow – which eliminates the need to nag them consistently or yell at them regularly.
7. Prescribe Time-Out
Time-outs are actually ingenious ideas, because it helps not just the children to cool down, but gives the parent some time apart, as well. If you’re children have been misbehaving or if they were being unruly, a time-out is a great way to avoid a screaming match.
Sometimes, the situation gets so frustrating that parents can’t help but start screaming, just to bring the chaos down. Immediately sending the children for a solitary time-out keeps the parent positive, as they don’t have to revert to yelling or blurting out something abusive.
I’ll repeat: being a parent is hard. What is harder is to maintain your positivity and enthusiasm on the difficult days, when all you want to do is to scream and shout at everyone. However, for your children to grow up happy and healthy, it is the duty of the parents to introduce positive parenting into your lives.
