Everywhere you look these days you’ll find information, articles and blogs talking about parenting, it’s a very hot topic! One thing that rarely gets addressed is why it’s important to change your parenting skills. Why bother?
Here are three reasons why I think parents should bother to change their parenting skills.
1. It’s a New Day
Some of our parents parenting skills were great, some not so great. Either way, all of those skills were based on the skills from previous generations. The skills they used were appropriate to their times. The kids from yester-year were different too. Times were simpler, parents ruled with an iron fist, and kids behaved out of fear.
Today’s kids are far different. Our children face influences that are far more intense than the ones we were exposed to. This generation of kids seems faster, quicker and brighter than generations past. Kids demand more from their parents too. They challenge our knowledge and our parenting skills.
Other things have changed, as well. The economy has changed, the intensity of our work has changed and family life has changed.
One thing that hasn’t really changed are the methods we use to parent, we still believe that punishment is the only way to teach a child, even though we know there are many new methods available. Many of those new methods actually gain better results, too.
We update our computers each time a new version of a program comes out. We need to do the same thing with parenting—we need to upgrade our parenting skills so the family “program” works and doesn’t crash.
2. The Truth About Childhood
Many regard childhood as nothing more than a frivolous and insignificant time in life. Researchers have told us that even though childhood is simple, playful and wondrous; it’s the most crucial and important time in person’s life.
Childhood is the time when things are logged into the subconscious to be retrieved in later life. A child’s misbehavior and how you correct it teaches them volumes about how the world works, how to get along in a family, who they are, and how to relate to others. In other words, childhood is a test run for adulthood.
All parents know that it’s not helpful to berate, yell or punish a child as they test a new skill. We know it’s far better to support, encourage and teach to help them succeed.
Use whatever you can, the experts on the Internet, sites like mine – Proactive Parenting, or pure informal sites to learn how to structure your corrections into mini-life-lessons that supportively guide your child toward what they need to know in order to control their own behavior.
3. Plug the Holes in the Concepts
Shannin Tipton asks, “How well do you react to pressure?” No parent likes to react, and no child likes to have their parent’s reaction dumped on them.
Changing your parenting skills so you can stop reacting can be confusing. You read concept after concept. They seem do-able and yet when you try them, they fail, why?
They fail because they don’t include the step-by-step information telling you “how” to succeed. A lot of articles only talk about the concepts and never share the steps needed to know “how” to apply the concept. They never tell you what to look out for, what not to do, and what happens if it doesn’t work. Parents need all the steps in order to change their parenting skills.
Here’s a perfect example. Parents are told to listen to their child, give away some power in a situation, and use natural consequences. That’s great conceptual advice. But, is it enough information to truly switch from yelling, punishing and reacting? I don’t think so.
A parent needs to know what active listening is and how to do it. Parents need to know how much power to give a child in a given situation so a child doesn’t think she’s in charge. And parents need to know how to keep a natural consequence from turning into punishment.
Changing your parenting skill is appropriate for our times. You need to find the methods you want to use and make sure you have all the “steps” to be successful. Sure sounds like something you would tell your kids doesn’t it?
