I recently attended a parenting skills workshop organized by my son's pre- school. It was conducted by a child pyschologist and was very well attended. What i liked most about the workshop was the informality in the environment that helped us ask the most basic (read silly) questions.
The program was structured into two parts -
1) Parenting overview
2) Style of parenting
Parenting overview
Here are my top A Ha
a) Parenting is an acquired skill (not an art!).
b) Its important to establish routines.
Meal time / Sleep / Play time (study if applicable) are important components of this routine.
c) Parents have a role in making the kid independent.
You can start working on this early on in the childs life (even with pre schoolers). Through this you are helping the child learn the life skill of making choices, taking decisions, learning to accept the consequences of wrong decision.
d) You (read both parents) need to be the role model for your kid.
For instance, we cannot expect the kid to be organized if we ourselves love chaos.
e) We need to constantly express unconditional love.
f) In disciplining the kid - follow the 3 C principle
Be Calm
Be Clear (Keep it brief, use positive sentence to convey instructions)
Be Consistent
To be consistent - be clear of the boundaries / norms for the kids. (What is acceptable and what is not).
Be Calm
Be Clear (Keep it brief, use positive sentence to convey instructions)
Be Consistent
To be consistent - be clear of the boundaries / norms for the kids. (What is acceptable and what is not).
g) If you want to reinforce discipline - withdraw privileges
This is something important to your kid (example - watching a favourite program, going out some where, spending time with some one special). However it needs to be done immediately and you need to establish the linkage with enough warning
Style of Parenting
Each one of us have a unique style of parenting. Every style is ok. However we need to become conscious of our patterns. We tend to blindly copy some one and that may not work for you and your kid
This is a self explainatory online tool that can help you determine you basic parenting style.
While attempting the questionnaire be honest about your current practice rather then marking - "should do" or "ideal" responses.
This is my interpretation of the parenting styles (click the image to see it more clearly)
Once you read my blog, send me your questions.. i will attempt to to answer them based on my understanding of the topic from the workshop..
hope this helps
