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Welcome to familywisdom.com, a website dedicated to informing and inspiring couples and families. Each week you will find a new article, story or essay about parenting, marriage or life. Suggestions for articles and questions to Ellen Terich are welcome. You can contact her at e.terich1@verizon.net |
PARENTING BY INSTINCT 2003-08-28 Many years ago I was on the board of directors of a cooperative (parent participation) nursery school. One of our ongoing projects was to provide parent education to all of our parents. When my children graduated from preschool and went on to elementary school and I had completed my Master's Degree in Marriage and Family Counseling, I was invited to return to the school as a parent educator. Ever since then I have been interested in helping parents with the awesome, difficult and often frustrating task of parenting. My views have evolved over the years. When I was earning my Master's degree, and shortly thereafter, I thought behavioral techniques offered good parenting strategies. I talked to parents about how to reinforce their children for good behaviors, use time-out and even set up token economies. A few years later I touted the idea of using logical consequences rather than punishments and emphasized good communication between parents and children. All of these techniques had their place but I eventually realized that this wasn't really how I parented. Time-out rarely worked for me and I couldn't always think of a good logical consequence. My communication sometimes involved raising my voice and I was sloppy about reinforcement. So I've spent some time in recent years trying to analyze how I did parent. Mostly, I followed my own instincts, which fortunately were modeled after the behavior of my parents and their parents, all of whom were pretty terrific parents. The only problem with parenting this way, of course, is that it is hard to codify it into a set of standards that might be helpful to others. What I have been able to do, however, is watch how my daughter parents, knowing that at least some of what she does she learned from me and her father. After spending the past two years watching her and being reminded of some of the things my husband and I did, here are my five top parenting suggestions: 1. Before anything else, make sure you show your child how much you love them. Loving them doesn't mean giving them everything they want nor allowing them to do whatever they wish. Loving them means telling them you love them, spending time with them, hugging them, sacrificing for them, keeping your promises to them and being gentle with their tender hearts. It also means sometimes saying "no." 2. Along with loving them, be joyful with them. Point out the good things all around them: flowers, puppies, butterflies, trees, clouds, other children. Sing songs with them, build things with them, read to them, laugh with them. 3. Be generous with your time and help them learn to be generous with theirs. Share your things with them so that they will learn to share with others. Teach them that there will always be enough if everyone shares, and therefore they have no need to keep everything to themselves. 4. Stop worrying so much about how to "discipline" your children. All children will do things that they are not supposed to do. It is your job to civilize them. This doesn't necessarily involve punishment. I realize now as I look back on my years of parenting that I actually punished my children very little. That's because it didn't work. When they are very small and they do something you don't want them to do, gently guide them away and tell them they are not allowed to do that particular thing. If they persist, simply outlast them. Try not to raise your voice, but if you do it's not so bad. You're human and sometimes children can take our patience beyond its limits. 5. As children grow up and are able to understand, it will be up to you to teach them how to be gentle, thoughtful, loving, generous and strong human beings. You do that by example, of course, and by having an ongoing conversation about life. When they are hurt by someone, you talk to them; when they have questions you listen and give your best answers; when they see something disturbing, you help them process it; when they do something wrong you help them learn about consequences - not just to them, but to those on the receiving end of their actions. Children need their parents to help them understand a world that is complex and often cruel. They also need teachers and models to show them how to live in that world without hurting others. |