How to foster good Parenting in our society

Raising a happy, healthy child is one of the most challenging jobs a parent can have — and also one of the most rewarding. Yet many of us don’t approach parenting with the same focus we would use for a job. We may act on our gut reactions or just use the same parenting techniques our own parents used, whether or not these were effective parenting skills.

Parenting is one of the most researched areas in the field of social science. No matter what your parenting style or what your parenting questions or concerns may be, from helping your child avoid becoming part of America’s child obesity epidemic to dealing with behavior problems, experts can help.

Good parenting helps foster empathy, honesty, self-reliance, self-control, kindness, cooperation, and cheerfulness, says Steinberg, a distinguished professor of psychology at Temple University in Philadelphia. It also promotes intellectual curiosity, motivation, and encourages a desire to achieve. Good parenting also helps protect children from developing anxiety, depression, eating disorders, antisocial behavior, and alcohol and drug abuse.

A lot of children today lack good Parenting due to broken homes. And this kind of children find it difficult to live a good life that worth emulating.

Parenting is not only for Women alone. I have heard several people saying, Parenting is for women because they are the one that give birth to children and they have opportunity to bring them up. And this is where we are missing it. Parenting is for both parents in which they both join hands together to take care and bring up the children in the way of God.

Here are principles for good Parenting which will help parent that will help bring up their children in a godly way :

1. Know your children from childhood:
   What I mean knowing your children from childhood is that you study them. They are lot of children going through emotional trauma, abuse. But when you’re close to them you will be able to know what is happening to them. Always observe them.
   Always ask them questions, and let them also ask you questions.

It is a pity today that some children can’t even relate with their parent because of the way they handle them.

2. Teach them in the way of the Lord:
   When you teach a child in the way of the Lord he/she lives a path of righteousness. Such child will not bring you sorrow, but a child you didn’t bring up in the way of the Lord will bring you sorrow.
3. What you do matters:
   Whether it’s your own health behaviors or the way you treat other people, your children are learning from what you do. Whatever you do either good or bad they will learn it. As parent there are things we do ignorantly and we don’t know that those children are watching.
4. Orient them about Sex Education:
   A lot of children fall victim of this when they been deceived unknown people, friends and family members.
   We have been hearing a lot of stories in the name of he/ she is my children lesson teacher.
   I want to say this, we should be very very careful about who handle our children when we’re not around.
5. You cannot be too loving:
   “It is simply not possible to spoil a child with love,” Steinberg writes. “What we often think of as the product of spoiling a child is never the result of showing a child too much love. It is usually the consequence of giving a child things in place of love — things like leniency, lowered expectations, or material possessions.”
6. Be involved in your child’s life:
   “Being an involved parent takes time and is hard work, and it often means rethinking and rearranging your priorities. It frequently means sacrificing what you want to do for what your child needs to do. Be there mentally as well as physically.”

Being involved does not mean doing a child’s homework — or correcting it. “Homework is a tool for teachers to know whether the child is learning or not,”

7. Adapt your parenting to fit your child: Keep pace with your child’s development. Your child is growing up. Consider how age is affecting the child’s behavior.
8. Establish and set rules:
   “If you don’t manage your child’s behavior when he is young, he will have a hard time learning how to manage himself when he is older and you aren’t around. Any time of the day or night, you should always be able to answer these three questions: Where is my child? Who is with my child? What is my child doing? The rules your child has learned from you are going to shape the rules he applies to himself.
9. Foster your child’s independence:
   “Setting limits helps your child develop a sense of self-control. Encouraging independence helps her develop a sense of self-direction. To be successful in life, she’s going to need both.”
10. Be Consistent:
    “If your rules vary from day to day in an unpredictable fashion or if you enforce them only intermittently, your child’s misbehavior is your fault, not his. Your most important disciplinary tool is consistency. Identify your non-negotiables. The more your authority is based on wisdom and not on power, the less your child will challenge it.”
11. Avoid harsh discipline:
    Parents should never hit a child, under any circumstances, Steinberg says. “Children who are spanked, hit, or slapped are more prone to fighting with other children,” he writes. “They are more likely to be bullies and more likely to use aggression to solve disputes with others.”

“There are many other ways to discipline a child — including ‘time out’ — which work better and do not involve aggression.”

12. Explain your rules and decisions:
    “Good parents have expectations they want their child to live up to,” he writes. “Generally, parents overexplain to young children and underexplain to adolescents. What is obvious to you may not be evident to a 12-year-old. He doesn’t have the priorities, judgment, or experience that you have.”
13. Treat your child with respect:
    “The best way to get respectful treatment from your child is to treat him respectfully,” Steinberg writes. “You should give your child the same courtesies you would give to anyone else. Speak to him politely. Respect his opinion. Pay attention when he is speaking to you. Treat him kindly. Try to please him when you can. Children treat others the way their parents treat them. Your relationship with your child is the foundation for her relationships with others.” – Atiba Dorcas Anuoluwapo

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