Parenting Help for Struggling Parents
Good Parenting Advice to Build your Confidence as a Parent
Apr 20, 2009
Whether a child gets in trouble at school, can't make friends, doesn’t achieve well in sport, rebels against their parents, steals, bites, drinks, smokes or even just have an imaginary friend, all parents will question their own parenting skills and ask, “Is there something I did, or didn’t do, that has caused my child to behave this way?”
What is Behavior?Firstly, whatever situation parents are encountering with their child's behavior, there are always answers. No matter how little, or how much parenting help parents believe they may need, all parents could use some good parenting advice once in a while.
It’s important to know there’s no such thing as a “bad” child. All behavior, appropriate or not, is simply a child’s attempt to fulfill a want or need.
All humans instinctively learn how to get what they want from an early age. Babies cry when they crave attention. This behavior stays with children until they’re old enough to comprehend appropriate ways to gain what they want.
This is why it’s so important for parents to begin educating children on appropriate behaviors when they are young. The older a child gets, the harder it is to assist him, or her, in altering behavior. Like smoking, it becomes a habit. It gets entrenched in the child's psyche and before long they become teens at risk.
In brief, behaviors are learned, which means acceptable behaviors can, and must, be taught to children.
Child Learning
One key fact about kids is that they are constant and continuous learners. They don’t only learn when they are sitting down in the classroom or when their parents are chatting to them at the dinner table. They learn at all times and in every situation. Every person a child encounters, young or old, has the potential to be his, or her, teacher.
Struggling Parents Help Ideas
- Be a good role model for the behaviors you expect at home. E.g. If you don’t want swearing, don’t swear yourself. The younger children are, the more they learn from parent behaviors.
- Create boundaries with rules and consequences so that children know what is expected of them. Without rules, children will constantly keep pushing the boundaries.
- Understand children and establish what need they are meeting with their inappropriate behavior. That way, parents can provide acceptable opportunities for their children to meet that same need.
- Stay strong when children act inappropriately to get what they want. If parents cave and reward unacceptable behavior to keep the peace, children will continue to behave inappropriately because the behavior helps meet their needs.
- Create an environment at home where children feel comfortable in talking with their parents and communicating their needs and issues from a young age.
- Reward the behaviors that are expected. For young children, the best reward parents can give them is their attention and praise.
- Visit children’s teachers regularly for good parenting advice or ideas. The more consistency children receive at school and home the more likely they are to respond positively.
- It’s not admitting failure to ask for good parenting advice. Everyone seeks help when they have problems with their cars, so why should asking for parenting help with kids be any different?
Anyone can receive parenting help at any stage of a child's development, whether he, or she, is an embryo or adolescent, don’t fear approaching the local school for help. Even if the children do not attend the school, they’ll assist parents with; good parenting advice, a phone number of someone experienced or parenting classes to attend.
The internet is also a key resource when searching for parenting help, parenting classes, or other parenting resources.
Remember, the earlier struggling parents ask for good parenting advice, the better chance they’ll have of guiding their children in adjusting to the realities of life.
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