Top 15 Parenting Tips [Bonus Tip]

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Being a parent is really not an easy task. There is no such thing as a ‘ Perfect Parent. ‘ Parenting is the way you treat your children and make their growing time best for them. The more time you spend with your children, the more they will be attached to you.

We can all, being a parent, just try our best to play our part efficiently using multiple best ways to raise our children well.

For this purpose, you need to follow the following top 15 parenting tips to become a good parent. Let’s get started.

Top 15 Parenting Tips

1. Show Your Love Through Actions

There is a considerable difference between the mindset of children who had the love of their parents and those who have not. The child with no parental love ends up choosing abandonment, sadness, and isolation.[1]

Some people think that excessively loving your child will spoil them, but it is not the act of love that spoils them but is the decisions you make while making a mistake or doing something wrong. It would be best if you were not too aggressive but should be firm on your words when they make a mistake to repeat it in the future.

Showing love means that you spend quality time with them, teaching them how to treat people, teaching them discipline, listening to their issues, and providing quality advice. These actions produce a hormone inside the body that causes the feeling to calm and develop close relations with their parents.

Remember to be super friendly to your kids and still love them to the point you don’t spoil them due to unnecessary leniency. Creating a sense of trust with your kid from childhood helps your children when they are in their teens as they can talk to you about their problems that the youth of today lacks.

2. Take care of Your Health

As a parent, you should also take care of your health as you do for your kids. When you are healthy and fit, you will be able to take better care of your children.

The first rule is to love yourself as much as you do to your children and take proper care of your well-being. It will also allow your kids to take care of themselves when they become parents because they have seen you do it.

You should have some time spared just for you when you can relax and be thoughtful about how you will carry on your responsibilities and know if there are any problems you face and how to overcome them. If you feel like your health is getting worse, take some time off and heal yourself as when you will be healthy, you will better take care of your kids.

Self-care is not a bad thing for a parent. Some may think it is a selfish thing to do when the kid needs them, but being mentally and physically fit is more important. If you are facing problems, you won’t be able to be a good parent and won’t take good care of your children.

3. Utilizing The Stuff That Already Exists

The field of Parenting has been in the study for too long. Much scientific research will help you learn about how you can take care of your children and help them grow into a better and productive individual.

You can read the book, The Science of Parenting; it will help you better understand what your kids do and why they do it. And will help you to raise an emotionally balanced child.

But there is no sure evidence that these experiments work for everyone as every child is different from the other, and you have to adopt different techniques to take care of your child. The parents are their kid’s first teachers, and whatever they will be taught, they will always remember that.

The one thing many parents use nowadays is spanking. They think being aggressive to your child will stop him from making the same mistake again. Yes, it works on some as I have been through that, but my brother was a resilient one and never affected him. So if we might consider an alternative way like reasoning or redirection, that may prove beneficial.[2]

4. Identify Your Child Potential

As parents, we always think of what our child should be in the future, but we do not believe for a second what our child wants to be. We prepare them from childhood to be something they might not have the potential or passion for. It is one of the most common parental mistakes.

You should always listen to your child and try to identify what he or she wants to be. Carve out the talent out of your children. The kids that are pushed in the wrong direction end up blaming their parents for the failure.

The kid should be made independent from childhood to make his own decisions and know what they want out of their life. If they’re going to be astronauts, don’t push them to be doctors just because you think it is an honorable profession.

Always listen to your child and let them decide for themselves as that is one of the biggest things you can do for them. Your work is to show them the path and which way they want to follow, it should only be their decision indeed.

5. Don’t Make A Comparison Between The Siblings

I have been prey to sibling comparison from childhood. As I was the dumb one and my brother was the super-smart one. But one thing that parents should understand is that not everyone is the same. Even the kids from the same parents will be different from each other in many ways.

It doesn’t mean that I am worse than the other. There are always some unique qualities that will always be found in one sibling and not in the other. You should continuously keep an eye on your children’s positives and try not to compare them. It negatively impacts your kid’s mind.

6. Monitor Your Child

It would be most beneficial to keep a close eye on what your child is doing in-person and on the internet. The world is a scary place, & without the parents’ proper guidance, the kids can de-track. It would be best to keep your children in front of you whenever they are using the internet mostly.

Always monitor the behavioral changes and reactions to different stimuli. If you find anything out of the usual, try to fix it to cause a significant future problem. The kids from age 2 to 6 are in the learning age, and whatever they will see, they will learn from it, either it is right or wrong.

It would be best if you created a sense of trust in your children’s mind from childhood so when they grow up, they share all their worries and whereabouts with you. It creates a safe environment for the children as they know their parents know where they are and what they are doing without any fear of being caught of punishment.

7. Make Time For Your Kids

Spend Quality time with your kids if necessary, especially when they are in their learning phase. It would help if you played games to help them solve and effectively use their intellectual abilities.

There is a well known classical game, Oragami,  that you can play with your child. I have played it in my childhood, and trust me; it is essential for a child’s development. It helps boost your child’s mental capacity and let them create new things from just a piece of paper. It helps to enhance the creativity of your child.

Sale
Oragami Paper
It will help increase your child's mental abilities and will enhance his intellectual creativity

You can also buy them Blocks; It will make your children think about what they can create but a set of blocks. It enhances compression and helps in problem-solving. You can make whatever you want from the blocks and are also a good source of spending quality time with your child.

Mega Blocks
These blocks will help unlock the analytical thinking in your child's brain to explore the countless possibilities in which your kid can transform the blocks

8. Independency

There will be a time when you will have to let your child decide for themselves and be independent in their decisions. But it can also have a significant drawback if you have taught them the ability of decision making.

Please keep your children in on the critical decisions. It helps them understand how to make significant and difficult decisions in difficult times. You should always consider the point of view of your child to give them a positive push.

These things are essential beforehand as the professional life is more challenging than the child thinks and making them ready for an independent life is the best gift we can ever give to our children. Making them understand society’s needs and norms and how to treat people will help them live an independent life without a problem.

9. Be A Role Model For Your Children

Being a best role model for your kids is very important. The kids learn everything from their parents and what happens inside the house. If they see that everyone is living with love and care for each other, they will become caring, but if it is the other way around, you know what might happen.

Always try to be useful in front of your children. If you want them to learn anything, show them how it is done. The children usually don’t learn what we are saying to them, but it makes them anxious to do what their parents are doing when they see us doing the same things.

You can try it out by helping a needy person in front of your children, and the next time you will see that whenever they see someone needy, they will always support him as they have noticed you do it. This technique will help you in being a good role model for your children.

10. Praise Your Children

You might not have noticed that you criticize your children for many small mistakes but do not praise them for the little good they do every day. If you establish a habit of praising your children whenever they do something good, it will boost their confidence, and they will try to do more good things so that you love and honor them.

The children are a creature of love. If you balance the love in their life with proper discipline, they will indeed become ideal kids. The first step to educating your child to do good is complimenting them on every good deed they do and reasoning with them whenever something terrible happens.

You will see a complete change in your kids after praising them and cheering them up on every good thing they do. They will do it again and again, and what other does a parent need than their children that they are a good citizen.

11. Set Limits And House Rules

Setting rules and limits are essential for a child’s development. The boundaries have to be set smartly. You shouldn’t limit their activities but keep an eye on what they are doing, and if they are overdoing something, then a set limit can be of great help for your child.[3]

It is considered the right way to keep your children away from any harm or doing any wrong thing because they know the rules set by their parents. And you have established a sense of trust with your kids; then, they will never break those limits.

If your child breaks the rules and crosses the limits, you can give them a little punishment or ground them. It is done to teach your kids that it is essential to follow these rules, and if they break them, you will punish them.

You can give them reasoning about why it is essential. If you told your kids to be back home at ten and return at 11, you could ground them for a week to learn that they have to come back inside the strict time.

12. Boost Child’s Self-Esteem

As a parent, you can boost your child’s self-esteem by making them feel loved and making time for them. It will help if you keep your body language, tone, and expressions such that the child feels safe to share his problems.

Allowing your kid to be independent and telling them to do what they love, will increase their self-confidence. Make sure that they come to you whenever they face any issue. Share your little problems with them so they can also do the safe.

You should always choose your words wisely and carefully. Don’t abuse or use bland words that will shatter their self-esteem.[4] Teach them that everyone makes mistakes, but only a few people have the strength to accept them. And no matter what they do, you will always love them.

13. Teach Your Kids Social Skills

To be a respectable citizen, your child should know the social skills to communicate and move into society. Ask at least two to three “You” questions to see the importance of the person they are talking to.

Always ask your kid if he is okay and how did he feel after a particular incident. It allows them to be emotionally attached to you, and they will do the same for others. Teach them to take care of the needs of other people.

The social skills may include making positive eye-contact, listening to others, not interrupting something, sharing their problems, giving feedback, seeing things from the other person’s perspective, cooperating, being polite, and many more.

14. Make Your Child Responsible And Actively Accept Challenges

To make your child responsible, make him accountable for something in the house. You can tell them to switch off all the unnecessary lights, close washroom doors, etc. It will create a sense of responsibility in your children.

Everything you teach your kid in childhood will pay off when they go into their teens and adulthood. They will comply with everything you have taught them and be a responsible citizen.

Another important thing is that make sure your kid is accepting the challenges positively. If you see them down due to a challenging task, push them to do it and teach them nothing is impossible if you are working hard for it.

Share your childhood stories with them to impress them so that they can take all the positive points from your life. They will try to copy you at a young age; kids tend to follow what they see their parents do.

15. Listen To Your Kids

Make a habit of listening to all the problems your child is facing. Avoid inevitable distractions and give them all the time they need to recover. If you do not do it at an early age, you will see that your child will stop sharing his problems.

If you see your child is sad, ask him what happened and think of ways by which you can help him. It creates a sense of trust, and whenever your child feels sad, he will come to you for guidance.

Being all ears for at least an hour every day can help your child’s mental health. If they don’t talk, it can cause depression and anxiety that can harm their health.

Bonus Tip: Maintain a Good Relation Between Parents

Maintaining a good relationship between the parents is very crucial. A child learns and observes parental behavior. If the parents don’t have good relations, it can cause a mental problem for the child.

To keep your child away from any psychological problems, your relation with your spouse should be cordial. It creates a healthy impact on the child’s brain. Try not to make such a mistake as it can be difficult for the young ones.

Why Is Parenting Important?

Parenting is an essential factor in one’s life. It can be good Parenting or bad Parenting. Although, The good one will indeed have a positive impact on the children and vice versa. It is your choice which one you want to be.

Good Parenting is critical in the child’s development. These relations have a lifelong influence on the kids. It determines how the kid will be in the society, either a very confident one or a timid one.[5]

You should always go on and become an ideal parent for your kids to follow and lead a successful life.

Conclusion

These were all the tips that you can follow to become an ideal parent. Your children always look up to you for guidance. Whatever you will show them and teach them, they will follow in your footsteps. It is the way you mold your child to be a better individual.


[1] D’Cruz, Heather, and Karen Stagnitti. “When parents love and don’t love their children: Some children’s stories.” Child & Family Social Work 15.2 (2010): 216-225.

[2] Day, Randal D., Gary W. Peterson, and Coleen McCracken. “Predicting spanking of younger and older children by mothers and fathers.” Journal of Marriage and the Family (1998): 79-94.

[3] Koestner, Richard, et al. “Setting limits on children’s behavior: The differential effects of controlling vs. informational styles on intrinsic motivation and creativity.” Journal of personality 52.3 (1984): 233-248.

[4] McDowell, Josh. The Father Connection: How You Can Make the Difference in Your Child’s Self-Esteem and Sense of Purpose. B&H Publishing Group, 2008.

[5] Sanders, Matthew R., and Karen MT Turner. “The importance of parenting in influencing the lives of children.” Handbook of parenting and child development across the lifespan. Springer, Cham, 2018. 3-26.

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Author

Diana Lucas

Diana Lucas

Hi, Diana here. Welcome to my blog and hope you like my sharing. I am a mother of 2 boys, 3 years old and a 1 year old. I dedicate my career in child development research and I focus on parenting tips, positive parenting, educational toys for my babies. Your time here means a lot to me! Diana A. Lucas

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