Kids Are Our Future

Raising children is the most important job in any society, because “Kids are Our Future”, and parents influence their children’s development most.

Many parents are looking for the answer of “how to be a good parent?”, since every family is unique, there is no one-size-fit-all answer. However we do know that raising children is a hard work and most of parents want to try our best. Parenting is one of the well-researched areas in the entire field of social science. It has been studied for decades by researchers involving hundreds of thousands of families. How to define “A Successful Child”? What are the good parenting principles? What are some parenting styles? What are the characteristics of a good parent? What kind of lessons we have learned although some parents desired to be good parents and actually tried hard, at last just got bad results? How to be a good parent to meet a child’s needs at different developmental stage?

In the next several posts, we want to discuss these questions and try to find some of the answers.

I think most of parents including me want to raise healthy, happy and successful children.

How to define “a successful child”? Different person may have different definition. I come up the following list, I hope you, the reader to add your definition.

1. empathic, kind, polite and friendly
2. cooperated, responsible, to think and act morally
3. has a joyful attitude, compassionate, and to love family and life
4. curious, confident, ambitious, determinable, patient and persistent
5. can adjust himself or herself psychologically, namely he or she has the capability towards self-control, self-reliance and mental toughness
6. work hard to achieve the ambitious goal
7. Have the ability to achieve their goal.

In order to raise a healthy, happy and successful child, we as parents should learn good parenting knowledge and skills. Although perfect parents do not exist, good parenting principles do exit. We want to be better parents.

Here we summarize ten basic principles for good parenting.

1. Be aware that parenting needs effort

   Every day, think about parenting, remind yourself how to treat and respond to your child has effect on the child, try to learn a lesson from your experience of parenting, and improve parenting by learning as well, be responsible parents.

2. Give a high priority to parenting, be involved in your child’s activity

   For busy working parents, this is challenging. However, you should manage your time, your work in such a way, which puts your child first. It sometimes means sacrificing your own interest in order to meet your child’s needs. Be there for your child mentally as well as physically.

3. Love your child but cannot too much

   Every day, show your child genuine expressions of warmth and affection, for example giving lots of hugs to your child. Different culture has different ways. However, if your child breaks a rule or does something wrong, you should tell him or her what is right thing to do. Criticize the behavior, not your child.

4. Set family rules

   Our society has rules, in order to help your child succeed in school, the real world, As a parent, you need to set family rules to help your child learn how to manage himself or herself. In order to know your child better, you should be clear on these three questions at anytime: Where is my child? Who is with my child? What is my child doing?

5. Be consistent on your family rules

   Your family rules need to be clear and consistent. Otherwise your child will be confusing and will not take it seriously. Explain your family rules to your child, the more your authority is based on wisdom and not on power, the less your child will challenge it. In addition, if two parents are raising a child together, both parents need to use the same rules.

6. Explain your decisions to your child

   Because your child does not have the knowledge and experience that you have, you need explain to him or her what you are thinking and why you made the decision with patience. For your child at different developmental stage, you need to explain to him or her in an easy-understanding way.

7. Avoid harsh punishment

   By the research that of all the forms of punishment that parents use, physical punishment has the worst side effects. Children who are hit are more likely to fight with other children using aggression to solve disputes, because they emulate their parents.

8. Adapt your parenting to fit your child at different developmental stages

   A child has different needs at different developmental stage, the ways to use parenting a toddler should be different with parenting a teenager. As a parent, you need to learn the milestones of children’s development and make sure your parenting keeps pace with your child’s development.

9. Respect your child

   Children treat others using the same way their parents treat them. Think your child is a person just like anyone else, who needs to be respected, just like yourself. Speak to your child politely, respect his or her opinion. Listen carefully when he or she is speaking to you. Treat him or her like a friend.

10. Foster your child’s independence

    Encouraging independence, give some free space but with some limits to your child to help him or her develop self-control, which is one of the keys to be successful in life. Explain the difference between rebelliousness and independence to your child. Independence is a part of human nature to want to feel in control rather than to feel controlled by someone else. Remind your child that he or she has to have the capability to control, which needs him or her to continue to learn.