Child Development and Positive Parenting

Arun — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 12:21:26 +0000

The children are our future. If we hope to achieve peace and happiness tomorrow, we must focus on child development today. Child development can be achieved through positive parenting. In this article we present child development and positive parenting suggestions that will lead to a better growth of your child’s potential and will also develop positive parenting skills in you.

Important Positive Parenting Tips

Be Patient and Calm

This is one of the most important yet least implemented child development tips. It is not easy to keep your cool when things spiral out of control and your kids do something improper. Remember, being angry/shouting/spanking the child is not the right solution and above all it is not positive parenting. It might seem to be a good idea at the moment but it sets a bad example for kids. If you can’t leave the situation, then mentally step back and count to ten. Be kind but firm with your kids.

Give Choices to Kids

Don’t impose yourself on kids. It can make them feel powerless and hamper your child’s development. Giving choices (whenever possible) is a healthy alternative to spanking or shouting at the child. If your child is playing with the food instead of eating it use kind but firm phrase “Would you like to finish your food or would you like to return to the table later?”

(Basic child psychology: Kids will be much happier if given choices, rather than imposing parents’ decisions. Hence, this child development tip works really well)

Spend Time with Your Kids

This is one of the most important basics of positive parenting that helps in child development. Spending quality time boosts your child’s self esteem and confidence. Play with your child, take them out and encourage them to participate in activities.

Using Logical Consequences is Necessary for Child Development

Logical consequences that arise from your child’s behavior can be used to teach them being responsible. For example, if your child breaks your neighbor’s window spanking/shouting at him does not show positive parenting attitude. A much better solution could be asking the child “I see you have broken a window, what will do to make it up?” May be the child help the neighbor in someway to repay the cost of the window?

This will teach your kid – Mistakes are an inevitable part of life but instead of hiding them or blaming someone else, we can work on them and make them correct .

Do Not Give In to Their Unreasonable Demands

If you have an agreement that your child cannot buy a particular toy when he/she gets to the store, do not give in to her/his demands, pleas, tears or pouting. Your child will learn to respect you more if you mean what you say.

These positive parenting suggestions and tips will not only make it easy to raise your kids in a better way, these child development tips will also make sure that your kids grow into good human beings. We hope you find these child development and positive parenting suggestions useful in raising individuals that form a healthy and happy society. Good Luck!

Talking About Feelings

The-Cute-Kid Photo Contest — Wed, 04 Mar 2009 18:06:09 +0000

As your child grows they will be faced with a variety of child emotions and events that will trigger sadness, anger, jealousy, happiness, loneliness, and other emotions. As a good parent it is important to talk about these feelings and how your child can deal with their emotions. Talking about how your child feels will help them learn to cope with their own feelings and with those of others.

Observe their behavior:
Observing your child’s behavior and actions can give you a glimpse of what they
are feeling and your child�s emotions. If your child runs to her room and slams
the door she is probably upset. If your son is bouncing up and down with his eyes
lit up he is probably excited.
Ask questions:
Ask your child how they feel. Find out if something happened at school, with
a friend, or a family member. Don’t expect your child just to open up and
pour out what is bothering them. On the flip side if your child has something
happy to share they might be waiting for you to ask also. My three-year-old
daughter just threw some toys on the floor then climbed on my lap. I
asked her, “Are you angry?” She said, “No.” So I then asked her if she was sad. She
told she was because she thought her sister wouldn’t share. Because I asked I was
able to easily resolve the situation.
Help identify emotions:
Your child may not be sure how they feel. So supply them with a list of emotions to
choose from. You could ask, “Are you angry? Or sad about what happened? Did you feel
jealous?” This will help your child identify their emotions and then learn how to better
deal with how they feel.
Listen:
After you have identified how your child feels and asked your child what happened listen.
Let them talk without interruption as they discuss the event that triggered their child emotion. Most
children will open up when they realize that you are truly interested and want to know.
Talk about it:
When your child has explained the reason they are feeling the way they do. Take a few minutes
and talk about the experience. Validate your child’s feelings. Don’t dismiss how they feel as
stupid. Just because you don’t think a friend sitting by someone else at lunch should upset
her doesn’t mean that it should not. Discuss ways that she can feel better. Maybe she could
talk to their friend. Or sit by someone else that she likes at lunch tomorrow.
Teach empathy
After your child is feeling better take a minute and discuss what the other person might be
feeling or the reason they did what they did. This way your child will learn empathy and that
when they are upset the other person involved probably feels the same way.

Talking about your child’s emotions and feelings helps validate how they feel. It teaches
them how to better cope and control their emotions. It builds communication between you and
your child. It also increases your child’s self-esteem as they realize that how they feel is
important to you.

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Child Development and Positive Parenting

Talking About Feelings