Navigating "Island" Parenting is a submission of quotes, tips and parenting advice that I have gathered over the years as a source of inspiration and as tools to deal with the daily challenges of parenting. Dr. Ed Wimberly’s said that, “ addressing parenting issues and difficulties is usually best accomplished by working more with parents than with children since usually, as parents deal more effectively with their own issues, what likely follows is a new, improved, and usually more successful approach to raising their kids. I believe that "kids are usually not "the problem" but rather the symptom of something in the parent's efforts that needs fine tuning. Fine tune our attitudes and we will likely get the desired results in our kids." This week’s issue of Navigating “Island” Parenting focuses on responsibility. The hope is that this submission would make the journey of parenting a bit easier or brighter, even if it is for one person.
Raising Responsible Children and Being a Responsible Parent
• Model responsible behaviour. You shouldn’t punish or chastise a child for behaviour that you are guilty of doing. You shouldn’t warn your child of the dangers of smoking or alcohol if you are a chain smoker or frequently imbibes alcohol. This is a case of “do as I say but not as I do.”
• Earn your children’s respect by modeling responsible behaviour and by respecting them. Acknowledge your child’s feelings and desires; make him or her feel important especially in decisions that would affect them directly. For example a parent may decide to send a child to another school, instead of taking this decision, it may be respectful to ask the child how he or she feels about changing schools, and genuinely take the child’s views into consideration.
• Be consistent with your children. Do not punish her for using foul language today, and smile or laugh if she does it tomorrow. This contradictory. It is always best to define expectations and set boundaries. Your child needs to know what behaviour is acceptable and what behavior is unacceptable.
• Give your children chores. It teaches them to be responsible. It teaches them life skills as well, as the parent won’t always be on hand to cook a meal, do the laundry or make the bed.
• Instill values in your child.
• Give your children rewards not bribes.
• Allow your child to receive the natural consequences for their actions. Do not bail them out of everything, for example if a child fails to hand in his or her homework assignment because he or she went to a party or stayed up late playing video games, and as a consequence may be banned from an upcoming field trip that he or she really wants to go on, instead of helping that child find an excuse or lying to the teacher, the parent should not intervene and allow the child to face the consequence of his or her actions.
• Believe in your child. If you believe in your child then he or she may believe in himself or herself. This requires establishing a relationship of trust.
• Do not grant your child’s every wish.
Parenting Quotes - Responsibility
“If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders.”- Abigail Van Buren –
“Don’t handicap your children by making their lives easy.”-Robert A. Heinlein –
“Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve.”- Roger Lewin –
“It is one thing to show your child the way, and a harder thing to then stand out of it.”- Robert Brault –
If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves. -C.G. Jung, Integration of the Personality, 1939-
Parents who are afraid to put their foot down usually have children who step on their toes. -Chinese Proverb-
Conspicuously absent from the Ten Commandments is any obligation of parent to child. We must suppose that God felt it unnecessary to command by law what He had ensured by love. -Robert Brault-
The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering. -Benjamin Spock, Dr. Spock's Baby and Child Care-
There are two lasting bequests we can give our children. One is roots. The other is wings. -Hodding Carter, Jr.-
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