What are the secrets to successful parenting?

Question

Yahoo! Canada Answers staff note: This is the real Ann Douglas. Look here for more information about Ask the Planet 2006: http://www.asktheplanet.ca/

Answer 1

A few critical points (in no particular order):

- Be firm and set clear and consistent behavioural guidelines, but try not to lose your cool. When you do, apologize for it immediately. Even kids at a young age can understand when an adult blows it, provided that an apology is offered. Kids are very forgiving.

- Be unreserved and generous in showing love and affection. This includes showing love through words and (appropriate) physical affection. This is the most important when disciplining children. My wife and I always finish off the discipline process with a hug and telling the kids how much we love them.

- Be supportive of their interests (provided that they are acceptable) to the maximum extent possible. Show a keen interest in their accomplishment and affirm them when they do things well or to the best of their ability. Kids need to feel successful.

- Keep religion in their lives. It's good for kids to understand from an early age that there is something greater than themselves and even greater than their families and friends.

Answer 2

I think the best way for successful parenting is loving and caring for your children, the more that they know you care about them and that they don't have to hide anything from you the more successful they are with what they do in life. Letting some rules down would also be a good way for your kids to know what is right and what is wrong. You should not avoid what your child is doing, even if it makes you feel like a failure as a parent. Just love your children if they do wrong or not. That is my point of view for a successful parent.

Answer 3

There is no secrets . I learn as I go they don't come with how to books .But I do the best I can. As parents we all wish the best for our children and do the best with what we have and how we ourselves were taught ,we can choose to do what our parents did or be totally different.I do believe though that kids do better when there are two people around them who are Ike mom and dad whether its a married couple,2 men or 2 women ,but the thing that kids need is two parents either in the home or very close .Also the best thing we can give our kids is time.

Answer 4

Unfortunately, as we all know children do not come with manuals, it is stricly learn as you go. However, I believe that the first and most important ingredient is to want to have a child. So many people have children for the wrong reasons, be it pressure from family, status, perhaps one spouse/partner wants a child more than the other or they feel that it is the next step in their lives and that's the way it should be. If you search your heart combined with some common sense and ask yourself, do I really want this responsibility, am I prepared to give this person 100% of my love, time and effort that we may both reap the rewards of a loving child/parent relationship not to mention the financial aspect? Am I prepared for many sleepless nights, endless crying, sickness, the need to be entertained, attitude as the personality develops and the peer pressure arrives on the scene? The need to be accepted amongst their peers, requiring patience, support when they don't want to talk to you and when they do, and don't forget extracirricular activities (i.e. hockey, dance and other sports), the list is endless. This is a lifetime comittment that you can't ignore or back away from, because the moment that you do, that life that you created, that you supposedly wanted, will be hanging in the balance. When you are prepared to give yourself to another human being unconditionally, to respect, love and nurture them as a person and not in ownership, then you are ready to be a good parent.

Answer 5

Parenting is not about secrets, it's about having the ability to assess each childs individuality, determine how and what they best respond to and go from there. The key to getting thru to a child is being able to see how a child processes what you are saying. Childrens minds percieve things differently than an adult, so what may be understandable to us, may not be understood the same way by them. But the key to successful parenting is to reinforce all the positive things you want them to be when they grow up, from the time they are born and up to, at minimum, 6 yrs of age. After that gentle reminders and guidance. And as I always said to my son when he was young "You know what is right and what is wrong, if you follow what you know and base all your choices on that then you will do the right thing". I am very lucky that he has done so and hear compliments about how polite, gentlemanly and helpful he is all the time from people. I know I've done my job by those comments and I always remember them when I am at my wits end. **Note: an added success tip: Vet all movies and media input before allowing you children to view it. Introduce the action stuff when you know they can understand that it is not real, nor the real world. I have noticed that children introduced to violence to early in life, because fairly desensitized to real life trauma.

Answer 6

All we can do is parents, is do the best we can. We raised all three of our our children with the same way. We had two sons and a daughter. We weren't any harder on our daughter than our sons. With obvious exceptions they were treated the same way. Go to school, do your homework, be home at curfew, and so on. Really just do your best whatever your best may be. There is a verse in the Bible, Proverbs 22:6 says, Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it. That's how we raised our children. Our oldest son is a pastor, our youngest is going for his degree in social work, and our daughter well she's a single mom/w 4 kids all different daddies. She started rebelling at the age of 15 and it went down hill from there, she is not yet 25. My point in all of this is we can not be perfect nor can we raise perfect kids. All we can do is our very best, and pray that they will succeed in whatever path they choose in life.

Answer 7

From all the psychological theories I have read and studied and by observing parents I believe a parent should use reasonable discipline when applying punishment or being firm with a child.
It doesnt hurt the child emotionally
Giving into frequently to a child's demands for attention or for something they want only creates higher expectations from the child as they learn what they get and cannot get from the parent and as they grow older. In a high demand for instant gratification it becomes more difficult for parents to put limits on children's expectations. I believe when reasonable discipline, or limits are applied children do not grow up deprived of nuturing. There is no hard evidence to support any one theory of child rearing and parenting styles. Loving your theory because it is popular doesnt always apply to all children. Common sense to disciplining a child works best.

Answer 8

I don't think there are any secrets - however, you need to use plenty of good, old-fashioned common sense. If you analyse your own approaches to parenting, and look logically at them, you can quite often see what the outcome would most likely be. For example: bailing your children out of all their problems and not making them face up to their mistakes. It may be your good intention to not make your child suffer humiliation, but this is harmful to them. Humiliation, no matter how bad it feels, is a part of life, and children need to be taught to deal with the whole range of human emotions. Besides, I don't want my children to have the mentality of "Who cares what I do? Mom and Dad will deal with it anyways." The 3-year-old who has just taken something small from a store (because they don't know that this is stealing), needs to be taught that the right thing is to return it and apologize. That 'small item' may one day become a 'big item' in their teens, a time when teaching a child a lesson becomes even harder.

Answer 9

Successful parenting would be the sum total of all of the above answers given by all parents. The main thing is what are you teaching your child by what you do and what you say (role model). Patience. love, respect, open communication, genuine interest in what they do , encouraging and positive attitude , discipline , setting limits- these are some of the important factors in raising good kids. Teenagehood is a very trying time for both parent and child...the parent is put to the utmost test but cooler heads prevail. Always pray for guidance from God ( excellent support system). Never forget the wisdom of your parents .Fundamental values never change. Stability and consistency are provided by the parent in this fast-paced , roller-coaster world our kids are living in ! GOOD LUCK to all.

Answer 10

I don't think any parent can rely on a set of "cure-alls", however, there are some basic things that are shown to make things a little easier for parent and child I think.

I think many parents don't take the time to speak to each other about what they feel is truly important to them with regards to how they want their children to be raised. So if dad thinks watching horror movies is okay but mom says no - both mom and dad need to get onto the same page. At the same time sometimes parents are just crazy busy and aren't consistent within themselves - i.e. when they have time to stop and think about what they are being faced with they are able to decide how they feel about this issue but when racing around doing 17 different things at once, they tend to lose that solidity and buckled under the need to just keep moving. That unfortunately just sends the wrong messages to kids. Setting boundaries are vital with kids and they will come to respect you for it.

Other than that, being open, honest, loving, and not being afraid to laugh at yourself are just gravy!

Answer 11

Parenting shouldn't be done on a whim. It is the most important job you will ever have. Everything else takes the backseat. People tend to put career before family, and that is a mistake. Jobs come and go, and jobs will still be there tomorrow, but babies turn into toddlers, who in turn become kids , who before you know it become teens then adults. Then *wham* they are gone out into the world on their own, and you are left wondering if you did all that you could have to help them become all that they can be. Give parenting your all, take them fishing, teach them to tie their shoes, eat ice-cream at the park , run through the sprinkler on your front lawn (who cares what the neighbour thinks?) Try to be honest and always be fair...kids learn from your example and the first 5 years are SO very important!