. They also kwowOne of the highest priorities we have as parents is positive parenting. It is a parenting principle that assumes that children born with the desire to do the right thing to establish a good relationship with them.
How you relate to them will influence their mental health and self-control. It will even influence their ability to create meaningful relationships with others.
Today, parents are encouraged to discard yelling as a way to correct their children. They are replacing it with more efficient explanations, rewards, and limits. This kind of approach, more patient and sensitive to their emotional resources, is known as Positive Parenting.
But what does it entail? Do you know how to apply it and why? I would like to tell you more about it.
What is Positive Parenting?
Positive Parenting assumes that children are born with the desire to “do the right thing.” For that reason, mutual respect is key, along with the use of positive methods of discipline. Likewise, it is better to invest time in teaching proper behavior in the future than to waste it punishing past misbehavior.
It is not a new parenting method. It was introduced in the United States in the 1920s by the Viennese psychiatrists Alfred Adler and Rudolf Dreikurs. As is evident, many years have passed, and Positive Parenting strategies have been improved over time.
I have seen repeatedly that modern parents raised with strict rules and violent punishments see Positive Parenting as an answer. An answer to escape from this “chain” of actions. As well as a way to educate their children differently. A way that corresponds to their values and beliefs.
Fortunately, parents who are sensitive to their children’s needs are becoming more and more common in our society. Knowing what they need, according to their growth and development stages, and their temper will help you get closer to them.
Keys to know regarding Positive Parenting
Positive Parenting promotes children’s personal development through various mechanisms. Not only that, but it also helps in their pro-social development. What happens is that by being raised under its principles, children will be able to regulate their emotions in a better way and focus their temper on more patient and productive tendencies.
All the results obtained through positive parenting are long-term, so, the abilities they can obtain thanks to this parenting style will accompany them until they get to other stages of their life, for example, improving the way they solve their problems in their adolescence.
Tools for Positive Parenting
Positive Parenting uses more tools and presents more results when applied at home. These are some of its main keys:
- Leadership and confidence: Positive Parenting encourages both teaching and leadership in children, and these same values boost their confidence, as they perceive themselves as more independent beings with the power to make good decisions by themselves.
- Communication and social skills: Also, with this parenting style, positive communication is often used as a resource that will favor social skills in children. Therefore, it will improve their relationships with playmates, schoolmates, and caregivers.
- Self-esteem: By giving your children a warm upbringing, you will be giving them the power of decision and with this, their self-confidence will increase significantly.
- Autonomy and creativity: By giving them the freedom they need to assert their tastes and preferences, you are providing them with something invaluable: autonomy. Growing up in a home where they have responsibilities and rights promotes empowerment and self-determination, as well as creativity.
In general, there are many aspects of Positive Parenting that nurture desirable behaviors in our children. As Christian parents, this parenting style is highly recommended due to the respect, understanding, the principle of love that it supports.
God does not want our homes to be battlefields, but a refuge to learn from His Word, and to strengthen what is most essential in this life — family.
Benefits of Positive Parenting
Raising your children with these principles will lead to several benefits that may not be obvious to you at this time. But they will become evident little by little as you apply them.
It should be noted that there is no specific age to apply Positive Parenting. You can do it once they take their first steps or much later in life if you just recently learned of its existence.
What are the benefits of Positive Parenting, then?
Fewer behavioral problems
Positive Parenting encourages children’s emotional growth. Meaning, that they will manage their feelings in a better way, and with this, they will not feel the need to misbehave to get your attention or misbehave as a form of protest.
It creates a more empathetic relationship between adults and children. It is quite the opposite of punitive parenting, which is very capable of causing behavioral problems. That parenting style makes parents look cold and distant. The little ones will perceive it as a sign of disinterest or even engender hatred, and problems will continue.
A better relationship between parents and children
Positive parents do not use yelling or hostile behaviors to correct their children’s misbehavior. Their dynamics are very different and are based on mutual respect and open communication.
Through Positive Parenting, it is possible to sit down and talk about what they did wrong, without the need for your children to fear you or shy away from facing their faults.
Mental well-being
High self-esteem is a direct product of this parenting style because with the messages you convey to them. You will be letting them that they are capable and intelligent enough to make their own decisions.
A confident child who is not afraid of “screwing something up”. He will grow up more resilient with a healthier mindset, capable of overcoming adversities. So, they know they have the power to do so. They also know that their parents will back them up regardless of what happened.
Other benefits such as better school performance and social competence cannot go unmentioned.
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