Parenting Changes

The obsession for the word ‘perfection’ causes great deal of pain and agony in any aspect of life. Parenting is no exception. Trying to be a perfect parent and making sure what is important to the family is two different things. They don’t go together. The moment you think of what is right for you and the family instead of worrying about perfection, many things get sorted out. Many a times, your best planned things go awry but that also gives you an opportunity of being honest about it with your kids. That goes a long way in deepening the connection. That way you can also have a heart to heart discussion with the children and plan ahead.

Parents have best interests of children in their mind and hearts. They want to give best to the kids and for that few changes need to take place every now and then. Now, there is a caveat in this. People expect immediate results and that’s a big mistake. Remember, changes take time to show the result. So better play the patience game and take the needed time. For a change to become a part of your everyday life, time and patience is of utmost importance. This also allows you to learn things and see things in new perspective. In era of fast food and instant coffee, it’s a futile idea to witness instant changes in you and your kids. Small changes will show up immediately but bigger changes take time. At the same time, more time they take, parenting changes will remain more strong and emphatic.

Suggestions for Parents

When parents ponder over the way of parenting their kids, one thing they should always remember is that there is always a choice. When you wonder over your upbringing experience you will come across several events when you were lectured, demanded, advised or corrected. Those memories can often make you think, probably that’s why I emerged successful or a better human being. But in the deep corners of your heart, you might think that there could have been better ways to make my childhood much happier.

Parenting need not to be of managerial style. There are several alternatives of parenting. Parents always have a choice regarding how they would prefer to handle and how to motivate kids. Just don’t try to imitate other parents or don’t follow blindly what other parents or elders teach you. That would not be such an interesting idea. Remember, different kids have different needs. One just can’t generalize good parenting rules and apply to kids ignoring their individual requirements.

Aim for some goals while embarking on parenting journey. Never try to be a perfect parent because that will be an impossible goal. No one is perfect and one is bound to do some mistakes. The only thing important here is to realizing what you value most as a parent and whenever you lose the track and commit some mistakes use that value as your guiding light. Once you stop thinking being perfect parent, there will be a marked improvement in your parenting style.

Parenting Dilemma

There is one very interesting fact about learning; only five percent of lifelong learning comes from instruction whereas the source of rest of the 95 percent is family and social interactions. One striking thing about learning process of kids is that they learn more from seeing what you do rather than what you say. So if you realize this fact and act accordingly knowing what your work style and daily routine can do to your children, can work magic in the life of a family. As we are talking about parenting style, first of all we need to look at the all the alternatives. This evaluating option will make us feel comfortable and will also bring stability and peace in the overall home environment.

Most often we wonder how we would like to parent our children. The trick is to look back at your own experience. It’s a normal thing to fall back on familiar things whenever we feel overwhelmed or tensed in particular situations. Let’s go back in time and check out the positives and negatives of our upbringing. That’s a great source to develop your own parenting style. If we have a life partner or friends or family members then asking them regarding this topic will also be a good idea. Those members can always share their experiences and provide you with more insight into the parenting psyche. Remember, parenting is always an enjoyable responsibility provided you are willing to think it that way.

What's your parenting style?

Many of us often think of the way how our parents treated us in our childhood. Few of us love it that way and few others think it could have been done in a better way. Quite a good number of new parents do not want to repeat the mistakes, they think their parents committed while bringing them up. Some other times, we also look at other parents and their parenting styles and admire the way they treat their kids. We often try to emulate such parenting style. Parenting style differs from parent to parent. Some prefer it disciplinary way and some other are quite liberal with the children. Being a strict disciplinarian all the time fail to provide the desired result and despite we realizing it we stick to the same methodology because of the habit factor.

Our parenting style mostly depends upon the value system of the family. But we should not choose a way that borders on extremism. It should not be too permissive or too punitive. We need to identify and understand parenting style properly so that implementation part gets easier. Before embarking on this discovery, we need to realize that parenting is one of the most demanding and rewarding responsibilities for we humans. Few of us have painful experiences of our own childhood and we try not to repeat the same mistakes committed to us. But whatever the parenting style we faced, the same greatly determines how we are going to behave with our kids.

Allotting Time for Children’s Activities

Parents should ensure that their child is consistently involved in some kind of activity. It could be household chores or art or sports. Allow them so time for TV but never let it go out of the hand. Children being children will obviously love to watch TV shows for unlimited time period. Whether it’s a music channel or cartoon shows, they will just love to hang around the TV. Try to involve the kids in some kind of productive activity. But also make sure that, the child is not involved in more than two activities simultaneously. Don’t over-exert him. Keep a check on his activity and try to make poems for kids enjoyable. Don’t allow him to get the feeling that he has to carry on, no matter what’s his interest level. Children will not enjoy the activity if they are taking it as a burden. So fun element is very crucial here.

One thing is also important here and that is the fact that parents are also involved in a particular activity with the kids. Because parents are there to guide them and indulging themselves for the purpose of games and practices. Any activity is fun-filled and enjoyable only if done in small doses. But you try to prolong it and it might rob you from crucial time as a family. Do make sure to spend quality time with the child by reading him short stories. That’s when the child is happiest.

Children and Responsibilities

Right from the very beginning children should be given responsibilities. For a start, we can allot them house chores and subsequently reward them on the successful completion of tasks. Children must be given the feeling that they are also contributing to family functioning. While deciding on house chores, we can think of several questions like; how to improve kids’ accountability and freedom? What kind of works, our children do now to contribute to overall scheme of things? What other works can be added to children’s list of responsibilities in coming time? How quietly and effectively we are going to support our children at their new works? Are we going to teach some new skills to the kids? The skills could range from washing plates to cleaning house or taking care of their clothes or folding bed sheet and blankets.

These factors must be our parenting considerations for this year. These things require some time to figure out but we must devote some amount of quality time and deciding these thoughtful things. There is also a possibility that while thinking of works for kids, we might start for new works for ourselves. The process can also be very useful in taking commands of our resolutions pertaining to work, family, health, relationships etc. another wonderful result of this process will be better bond between parents and children. So what are you thinking of? Just get going and enjoy the process.

Supporting Children

Many parents religiously indulge themselves in doing kids’ homework. They do it completely and thus easing all the home work blues of their children. Helping children, right? No, it is called rescuing children. Helping or supporting children is done when you assist them in doing their homework, when they falter at particular subjects and you guide them. Finishing homework on your own devoid children of several positive qualities which they were about to acquire. The actual problem lies in paucity of time. Parents after coming back to home still reel from day’s hard work and ubiquitous pressure. They assume, let’s finish the homework on our own because explaining kids the concept and teaching them thoroughly will take a lot of time and further increase our stress. So let’s choose the easy way out. But, hardly have they realized it’s a completely wrong way.

Parents must keep the fact in mind that supporting children by sacrificing our own personal time goes a long way in cultivating kids’ personality. Let the children master their subjects on their own. Let’s just guide them than jumping all the way and finishing homework in hurry. By supporting our children and helping them to master things is a sure shot way to enhance their self esteem and self confidence. This is also a way to encourage child’s independence and responsibility. Always remember, we are here to provide the basics for our kids. We are not here to let them take things for granted.

Parenting goals

We discussed parenting goals for this New Year. One of the crucial steps that could be taken by parents is trying to understand and interpret child’s point of view during any conversation. Depending upon the kid’s age, he or she can be included in conversation and their points should be taken in serious light. This way, child will also feel self-importance and their self esteem is sure to improve further. When parents ask children questions like what do you think about this, or what’s your opinion about this issue or what do you recommend in such situations etc instills a sense of decision making in children. Hearing out children’s voice and opinions is a wonderful way to improve parents-kids relationships.

Now a days, children are indulged in several creative, recreational and vocational courses. Often they perform well and sometimes they are not so good at the performance chart. Here, what parents can do is to congratulate and celebrate each and every success of their kids. It could be in form of eating out or giving them a hug or spending meaningful time with them. There are hundreds of ways to show affection to kids and trust me, they love it. Parents must grab each and every opportunity to shower appreciation to the children. Parents should also focus on identifying children’s favorites whether it is clothes, foods, sports, books or tv shows. Our future articles will keep exploring new and latent ways to improve the wonderful bond between children and parents.

Parenting questions

I am pretty sure; many of the readers are proud parents or soon going to be parents. Most of them would like to visualize themselves in a certain way as parents. They would also love to set up their minds about how they would like to “be” with their children. But before embarking on this challenging journey, few questions must be asked. These questions will not only help you in becoming good parent but also make your connection with the children stronger.

Questions can range from relationship proximity to year basis like how parents would love to see panning out their relationship with the kids at the end of this year. And to achieve those goals what steps do they need to take? Parents also need to show children respect in order to enhance the established bond. The trick is if we show respect to our children, it comes our way manifold during old age. What we would like to see from them, we need to perform first. So parents should focus on devising new ways to show better respect to kids. We should also value our kids for what they are, who they are than judging them on the scale of what they do. Parents should also focus on understanding different point of views put across by kids. It goes without saying that there has been a paradigm shift in children’s perspectives. In tune with that change, parents also need to adjust the mindset and that will surely result in better bond between parents and kids.

Make Your Family Ties Stronger

Parents, who have better ties with their kids, often manage to do it because of the quality time they spend with them. Spending time with your kids, indulging in little chit-chats tend to make your bond with the child stronger. So how to do that? Parents can take a concrete step towards this goal by scheduling fixed time duration on per day or per week basis. Make sure it’s on a one-on-one basis. Just you and your kid. This thing will not only strengthen your ties with the kid but also deepen the attachment. This step has several benefits like the opportunity to know innermost feelings of the child. It’s a known fact that a kid is more comfortable in sharing his most personal feelings when he or she is along with the parent. It’s difficult for child to express his emotions when he/she is with the sibling. He feels more vulnerable in such conditions. So make sure to have him talk to you in private. Another positive effect will be sense of value in importance that the child will feel. He will get the feeling that my parents value me more than anything else and they want to listen to me. Imagine the high, he/she will get.

Another wonderful suggestion to make your ties stronger with family is to think of a family activity together each week or fortnight. It could be anything like doing puzzle, playing a game, watching family videos or some outdoor activity etc. both parents can think of several such ideas and execute them and the end result will definitely make you feel very satisfied.

Resolutions for Your Family

To being with the resolutions, first start with a calendar. Think of the days spent together with family. Also count your work time. Now check out the areas where there is definite scope of improvements. Begin with a fixed time schedule which you will devote to your spouse. It could be watching movies together, or sitting in your garden, going to a restaurant, or any other similar thing that gives you enough time with each other. If you think of it, married couples don’t spend much time in meaningful conversation. The average time is abysmally low at few minutes. Normally all the persons, take their spouses for granted. They don’t think this relationship requires too much care or time together. And that’s where they make the biggest mistake. Logically, our best relationship should get best of the times. Spouse is not only a life partner but a friend, confidante also.

How about spending time with your spouse without your kids? Try to rejuvenate the early romance with your partner. A happily married couple always influences kids in a positive way. Surely, life will never remain the same. Once you have planned about this thing lets move to another wonderful thought of having dinner with your entire family. Because of the hectic and stressful lives most of us live, very few of us get a chance to have a family dinner. Family dinner used to be a traditional norm but it is losing its sanctity. Try to preserve that because it is the best place and time to make stronger relationships with your family. It’s worth more than anything else

Importance of Family

Parenting involves a family. A complete family with father, mother and children. We all make new resolutions but most likely as individuals. The normal resolutions include things like, getting more focused, more organized, losing weight, achieving goals, improving relationships, behaving good, quitting smoking etc. But how often you have heard of family resolutions? Not many people have been found to prepare resolutions for family. If not then lets think of this fact for a while.

Major parts of our life spend with our family. We are so comfortable with are our family that we start taking it for granted. Our family provides us security. We take our meals with the family, with spouse, with kids. Infact, the comfort level is so extreme that we hardly ever think of them despite the fact that they are our lifelines. Let’s make a beginning. Lets make few resolutions and implement them and the result, well you will be surprised to see the difference in everyone around. The best result will be the sense of satisfaction you will have.

But before that try counting the number of days you have spent with your family. Also think of when was the last time you took your kids to playground. Not to forget when the last time was you spend some quality time with your spouse with nobody around. Does that strikes you? Hard to remember? Difficult to count such days? That’s what I meant by making resolutions for the family. Our future posts will focus upon several such resolutions implementing which will bring nothing but fulfilling experience in your life.