Good parenting is the one which develop in children character traits like independence, self-direction, honesty, self-control, kindness, and cooperation. It also involves parents living their lives as role models. Child’s first teacher is a parent or the prime care giver. Children learn maximum from their immediate environment and are like sponge absorbing every minutest detail around them. One may feel that the young infant or toddler does not understand the adult world; maybe not, but the absorption is there. They imbibe each and every word, style of speaking, language, body language and the vibes their environment offers them. Parenting involves an amalgamation and cumulation of actions, reactions, responses and interactions around the child, specifically in the early years.
There is nothing such as ‘perfect parenting’, but there is definitely good and mindful parenting. According to research the child is born with a natural suckling instinct, an action which provides nourishment to the child from the first day in the world by latching to the mother’s breast. That is the first connection a child forms with the real world outside the womb. Child come pre-programmed to form attachments for survival.
Each parent has a unique parenting style, but research has categorised these styles after years of studying patterns in parenting into the following categories:
Parenting styles are not termed on whimsical opinions but are scientific facts. Let us understand these categories and the terminology attached with them a little better.
A word of caution to all parents:
As a school head I constantly got complaints about a five-year-old from his teachers that he had a habit of hitting other children, even his best friends on the slightest provocation. The teachers tried hard to discipline him with love and tried to make him understand that hitting is a bad action, but there was no change in the child. Then I had to intervene and call his parents. Only the mother turned up for the meeting. The mother was extremely defensive and did not take the complaint well. Then I had to try another way of reaching out and the conversation changed to her instead of the child. We spoke for some time and once she was comfortable, I asked her about her responses to the child in various situations at home. Then she revealed that sometimes when she is upset with him, she hits him as he does not listen to her at all and is very stubborn.
There lied the cause, hence I explained her as a well-wisher and friend that if a child, who knows that his mother loves him the most, hits him when she is upset, that means even he can hit someone he loves when he is upset. That is why when his friend upset him or there was a disagreement, he resolved to hitting as way to resolve the conflict, because that is what he had learnt and understood from his parent’s actions and reactions. Now, consider the life of the same child when he grows up and the parents did not mend their ways. The child will be a bully in high school and later what will happen in college? What will happen once he is married and gets upset with his spouse? Will that way of life be acceptable to the parent? This got the mother thinking and finally she understood that children mirror their parents behaviour and their parenting style. In the end, a word of caution to all parents, please think mindfully on your own parenting style before you have a teenager to blame for all things going wrong.
All the best for your parenting journey.
Smriti Agrawal is an award winning author, specialized in early childhood parenting