10 Instant Ways to Become a Better Parent
Posted: Tuesday, December 11, 2007
by Tanis Nicole Wright
Better Parents, Better Kids Program
Most articles, books and websites on parenting tips and advice focus on how to change your children or your children's behavior, however, there are not too many sources of information that focus on the parent. However, the true key to happy and healthy children as well as successful parenting is actually through the parent, not the children. To further explain, the following are 10 Instant Ways to Become a Better Parent.
1) Take Care of Yourself: It is important to take care of yourself in order to be a really good parent for several reasons.
First is that in order to have energy to take care and spend time with your children you need to be healthy and functional.
The second reason is that when your children are young they are like sponges they absorb everything they see, hear and feel in their environment.
So if you are stressed and fatigued because you are not physically taking care of yourself, or if you are angry, frustrated or resentful because you are doing things that you think you should do versus what you feel or desire, your children are being exposed to and absorbing all of these toxic emotions.
As well because you spend probably the most time with your children as they are growing up by default you are their earliest role model so how you treat yourself is how they are going to grow up treating themselves.
First is that in order to have energy to take care and spend time with your children you need to be healthy and functional.
The second reason is that when your children are young they are like sponges they absorb everything they see, hear and feel in their environment.
So if you are stressed and fatigued because you are not physically taking care of yourself, or if you are angry, frustrated or resentful because you are doing things that you think you should do versus what you feel or desire, your children are being exposed to and absorbing all of these toxic emotions.
As well because you spend probably the most time with your children as they are growing up by default you are their earliest role model so how you treat yourself is how they are going to grow up treating themselves.
2) Understand That You Child Is Unique: Everyone is unique, with their own unique personalities, bodies, and purpose in life. Your children are unique individuals as well with their own unique needs, wants and requirements.
As a parent, if you understand this, you can be more open to finding out what is best for your child based on what is best for them, versus what you think is best for them because that is what you would want or what other people think your child would want.
As a parent, if you understand this, you can be more open to finding out what is best for your child based on what is best for them, versus what you think is best for them because that is what you would want or what other people think your child would want.
3) Be Open to Listening Without Judgment: One of the reasons that teens and parents have a lot of trouble communicating, is that by the time your child has reached their teen years, they have found out that if they tell you how they are feeling, thinking or wanting, they are met with judgment on your part.
Even if you don't verbalize your disagreement or disapproval of what they are telling you, they are close enough to you to be able to pick up your judgment.
So it is important in order to have open and honest communication as well as a sense of trust that you are open to listening to your child, no matter what they say without judgment.
Even if you don't verbalize your disagreement or disapproval of what they are telling you, they are close enough to you to be able to pick up your judgment.
So it is important in order to have open and honest communication as well as a sense of trust that you are open to listening to your child, no matter what they say without judgment.
4) Be Open to Allowing Your Child To Express Their Feelings and Emotions: Many children grow up in households where feelings and emotions are not approved of, or invalidated.
The way how some children react is to either have emotional outbursts from holding their emotions in or they learn how to shutdown or repress their emotions, which result in them becoming emotionally shutdown.
In either case, their behaviors are not desirable for the family or for the future relationships that they will be involved with.
In either case, their behaviors are not desirable for the family or for the future relationships that they will be involved with.
So if empathy doesn't come naturally to you, learn how to empathize so your children feel like it is alright to express their feelings and emotions or at the very least make a decision not to be reactive or in judgment if your children do express themselves emotionally.
5) Learn Communication and Conflict Resolution Skills: Communication and conflict resolutions skills don't always come naturally and many people also pick up dysfunctional ways of communicating like cutting people off, talking over people, invalidating what people say or not owning their own issues or feelings when they talk.
How you communicate is how your children are going to learn to communicate, so if you want to be able have functional communication with your children, as well as if you want you children to have excellent communication when they go out on their own in life, learning as much about functional communication techniques and conflict resolution skills is a definite benefit.
How you communicate is how your children are going to learn to communicate, so if you want to be able have functional communication with your children, as well as if you want you children to have excellent communication when they go out on their own in life, learning as much about functional communication techniques and conflict resolution skills is a definite benefit.
6) Help Your Child Understand That Others Are Different: Just as it is important for you to understand that your children are unique and different from anyone else with their own needs, wants and requirements, it is also important to help your children to understand that others are different too. It helps to prevent a life of them judging or trying to force others to be like themselves.
Teaching your children that others are different also helps them to learn about how to give others what they want in the way they want it, since any relationship whether that is with your family, your job or your relationship is all about being a mutual fulfillment of needs.
If we don't understand that others are different, we will never be able to succeed in having a successful relationship.
7) Teach Your Child The Importance of Being Nice To Others: A common misconception in our society is that the way to control people, teach people and/or to get a head in life is that we need to punish people, make them feel bad in order to encourage them to do better or that we need to push people down or intimidate them in order to pull ourselves up.
However, it is totally unnecessary to be mean to others. You may have heard the saying you can attract more bees with honey. Well it is true, sure some people get inspired by a challenge, but everybody can work better, achieve more and be willing to give more if they feel good about themselves. So being nice to each other is a win-win for everyone.
For example, the person on the receiving end feels good about his or herself chances are the person being nice is going to be treated nice in return as well as feel good about his or herself because they treated the other person nicely.
However, it is totally unnecessary to be mean to others. You may have heard the saying you can attract more bees with honey. Well it is true, sure some people get inspired by a challenge, but everybody can work better, achieve more and be willing to give more if they feel good about themselves. So being nice to each other is a win-win for everyone.
For example, the person on the receiving end feels good about his or herself chances are the person being nice is going to be treated nice in return as well as feel good about his or herself because they treated the other person nicely.
8) Teach Your Child to Respect Others: Respecting others, both young and old, strangers or love ones, helps to remind us that the person we are being respectful of is a person with feelings, worth and dignity.
If you are able to teach your child the importance of being nice and respect others in combination with understanding that we are all unique, it may single handedly nip the phenomena of bullying in the butt. Who or for what purpose would there be left for anyone to want to bully someone?
If you are able to teach your child the importance of being nice and respect others in combination with understanding that we are all unique, it may single handedly nip the phenomena of bullying in the butt. Who or for what purpose would there be left for anyone to want to bully someone?
9) Teach Your Child To Take Care of His or Herself: Taking care of yourself as we mentioned under Way #1 is the first step, you also need to teach your children that because they are unique, they also need to be responsible for speaking up and taking care of their needs. You need to give you children permission to take care of themselves, even if it is not the way others think they should.
For example, a lot of parents may want to get their children to do their homework right when they get home from school, but your child would focus better after supper instead.
If children aren't aware that they are different than most kids who do homework after school, plus if they weren't given permission to take care of themselves, they would continue to struggle along with their homework instead of taking advantage of their peak studying time period, which in this case is after supper.
If children aren't aware that they are different than most kids who do homework after school, plus if they weren't given permission to take care of themselves, they would continue to struggle along with their homework instead of taking advantage of their peak studying time period, which in this case is after supper.
10) Teach Your Child To Unconditionally Love His or Herself: In a world where the majority of society bases your worth on what you are able to achieve, do or not do, if you can teach your children to be able to unconditionally love themselves, they will never feel bad about themselves or guilty regardless of what they do or not do, or whether they succeed or fail.
If children feel good about themselves and has the ability to love themselves, they can grow up and live as an a adult making healthy decisions that are highest and best for them, instead of decisions based on guilt or the need to make themselves feel better because they are trying to earn worth or love.
If children feel good about themselves and has the ability to love themselves, they can grow up and live as an a adult making healthy decisions that are highest and best for them, instead of decisions based on guilt or the need to make themselves feel better because they are trying to earn worth or love.
The suggestions above may seem like a lot of things to absorb as well as to learn about yourself or teach your children about but the Top 10 Ways to Become a Better Parent is guaranteed to set a strong foundation for a happy and healthy family.
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Top-level comments on this article: (5 total)What a nice article. Good advice, sorta long- but worth while. Im a Single mother of 2 boys and very attentive when it comes to parenting :)Hi Megan, Thank you for your feedback! I guess it's good I didn't call the article 20 Instant Ways To Become A Better Parent or we would all still be reading it! lol! Best Wishes, Tanis
Tanis, Thank you. You summarize some excellent parenting principles, ones that I try to incorporate in my practice. Thank you for your contribution!Hi James, You are welcome! I'm happy that you will be able to a apply the principles into your practice. Thank you for your feedback. Warm Regards, Tanis
Thanks for the terrific pointers. I could improve on all counts!Hi Samantha, Your welcome and thank you for your comment! As well as improving on all accounts, don't forget to take a moment to appreciate yourself for all the terrific things you already do and are for your family. Warm Wishes, Tanis
I thought this article was great! It's so sad how people cannot see what they are doing until it's done the damage already, I am a new mommy (4 months new!) and I was never supposed to have children, but my little girl is the only thing I see when I get upset or frustrated and it all goes away, I make sure that I make her just as happy as she makes me whenever I'm with her, and that great big gummy smile of hers is the cure to anything bad in life. I hope to be able to hang on to that for the rest of her life, because I think that,along with structure, making your "babies" know you love them and are there for them no matter what, is the MOST important building block for them to be successful and self confident and happy.HiCRain626, Congratulations on your new baby girl! Thank you for your comments. It is nice to see a parent who understands right from the beginning how much of a positive influence they can have on their children! Wishing You a Happy Holiday. Tanis
Hi Tanis! This article is very useful. I'm a trainer. One of my colleague once invited me to talk about parenting to the parents of her grade school pupils. I searched from the internet and looked for a better and suited materials for the Filipino parents. Its good that there is this article which is generally practical and applicable to the culture of Filipinos in child rearing. Keep on posting. Best regards!
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