Are you an Effective Parent?

Effective Parenting

Are you an effective parent? The following six questions will give you a snapshot of your parenting tendencies.

1. Can your child predict with 100% accuracy what will happen as a result of their misbehavior?
2. In your arsenal of parenting tools do you have light, medium and heavy consequences?
3. Do you spend time each day with your children engaging in meaningful activity or conversation?
4. Do you take time to talk through misunderstandings and misbehaviors when you are calm and level headed?
5. Are you focused on helping your children become adults who can face the world in a competent and remarkable ways?
6. Are you being a living the example that you want your children to meet and exceed in their future life?

The following discusses how effective parents handle issues.

Question I: Discuss the rules with their children and make sure that they understand the expectations. They also make sure that consequences are understood and follow through with. Question 2 : Keep a variety of tools at hand. They recognize that children make mistakes and that this is different from willful deliberate disobedience. They make certain that consequences are swift, loving, kind and sympathetic to the plight of the child. 

Question 3: Make time each day to make meaningful connections with their children. It becomes a priority to be a part of their children’s everyday world. It is very important for them to have loving and nurturing activities and conversations with their children .

Question 4: Take the opportunity to use times of misbehavior and mistakes as teaching tools. They discuss the expectation and help kids to step back and look at their motives and hidden reasons for their misbehavior. They keep responsibility for the actions with their children and help children come up with strategies to prevent future problems.

Question 5: Recognize that the true test of parenting is in the adults their children become. Keeping that in mind children tend to take detours along the path. They stay focused on helping children learn from mistakes and help them to use the new learning.

Question 6: Recognize that they are the example their children will base their lives upon. They also know that behavior speaks louder than words. They live out each day the person they want their children to be in the future; recognizing that their children will often exceed them.