Positive Parenting: Impacting Generations by Sherece Scott

For decades, it has been said that “children live what they learn” and I find this statement to be quite true. As parents we are our child’s first teachers, therefore, we have the responsibility of instilling certain core values that are crucial to our children in their early stages of development. Consequently, how well we parent our child/children and the parenting techniques that we use will impact their behaviour either in a positive or a negative way. Personally, I think that parenting is one of the most important jobs and if it is done well, we will see great improvement in the quality of women and men that we are sending out into the world. Below are some tips on how parents can positively impact this generation.

Construct and sustain a connection – it is imperative that you have a good relationship with your child/children. This is basically the foundation of all thriving relationships. Your child should know that you will be there for them no matter what and should feel comfortable enough to share anything with you, be it good or bad.

Practice positive reinforcement – reinforcing a particular behaviour when it is displayed can effect change in the behaviour and result in shaping whether the action is recurrent in future.

Make time for your child/children – neglect can negatively impact the way a child performs in school, lower their self-esteem and determine their level of discipline. For this reason, it is important to spend time with your child/children so that they will feel valued and loved. Also, it will aid in strengthening them mentally and emotionally.

Ensure that you are a good Role Model – children usually pay close attention to the things that their parents do and then imitate them. Therefore, we should ensure that we are modelling the appropriate behaviours that we want to see them displaying.

Teach them to be resilient – life is no walk in the park, it's filled with many challenges and we are guaranteed to stumble and fall at times. However, if we teach our children resilience and perseverance they will know to always get back up, brush themselves off and try again because giving up is never an option.

Positive parenting is what this generation needs and any individual who holds the responsibility of a child’s upbringing needs to understand how crucial proper parenting is in raising decent children that will contribute to a better society.

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