How To Be A Good Parent -Parenting Is Coaching
In today’s information age, parents are bombarded with tips, advice, and guidelines even before their children arrive in their arms. Everywhere parents turn, there’s another website, another friend, or another book pushing a different set of rules for how to be a good parent. Confusion is inevitable.
Trying to figure out the exact right way to be a good parent can become an obsession that obscures the real joys of parenting!
Trust Your Gut- But Get Assistance
You are the best expert on how to parent your child. But……….everyone needs tools to become a better parent and person. If you grew up in a dysfunctional home or lack parenting skills, go to parenting classes, seek professional help or ask successful families that you know how to parent.
As a parent, you are more than a babysitter. To your children, you are a life mentor, supporter, coach, and guide. You do more than keep your child alive: you teach your child how to live. You are a specialist in your own lifestyle and have seen much of what works and a lot of techniques that are not healthy.
Don’t be shy about sharing your knowledge with your children! In our family, life always ran smother when we had family meetings and could discuss in a democratic way what was going on in life. For an outline on Family Councils, see http://www.kidschoresandmore.com
Don’t Try To Be Perfect- Just Be Present
The perfect parent does not always have dinner on the table at six. The perfect parent does not always serve the healthiest option available. The perfect parent does not always know what to say. The perfect parent does not exist!
Families can do fine as long as the rules and boundaries are fair and consistent. If there is a foundation of unconditional love and forgiveness, then families will thrive, not just survive.
Rather than draining all of your energies as a parent in attempts to meet the standards others set for you, realize that the real answers to being a good parent lie within you. Spend time with your children listening and sharing and you will develop your own parenting style.
Mentor and Teacher–Not BabySitter
We are coaches, supporters, guides, and mentors to our children.
A football coach does not try to mentor children in French, yet many type B parents, encouraged by friends or media, try to teach their children to live a type A lifestyle. This is counter-intuitive and ultimately leads to frustration and confusion for both child and parent.
Like any other coach, mentor, or guide, a good parent teaches what he or she knows and admits what he or she doesn’t know. You will be amazed at what your child will teach you. They have a much less jaded prospective on life and can not only smell the roses but see the little Lady bugs.
Your best parenting style will be an extension of your own personal style.
Allow your personality, and that of your child, to guide you as you decide which parenting suggestions will work best for you. Don’t be afraid to experiment. Try new ideas. Reject the ones that don’t work for you or your child, and make the ones that do a consistent part of your routine.
Self Awareness Quiz
1. What is some parenting advice that didn’t work for me and my child? What is some advice that did work?
2. What parenting methods from my past do I want to change or modify?
3. What are my goals as a parent? How can we function best as a family?
Thanks for joining us today and sharing time learning new methods of parenting and family life. This is the most important work you will ever do in your life. Enjoy your family and allow your child to enjoy you.
This article is written by Judy Helm Wright, life educator @ http://www.ArtichokePress.com You may have permission to use in your blog, ezine or offline magazine. Please keep contact information and content intact.
Thank You.
