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Positive Parenting: The Benefits That Last A Lifetime
By Michelle Bery
Raising children can be subjective and complicated. But there are many hard and fast rules that seem to bridge the gap between a myriad of parenting styles. Positive parenting - offering children positive feedback for their achievements and efforts - can go a long way towards raising positive, emotionally healthy adults.
Too often children are noticed - and punished - for their negative behavior. While discipline and boundaries are always appropriate, you must be sure that your child is not only receiving negative attention. When children are noticed for their bad behavior and ignored when they are acting appropriately, it sends the wrong kind of message. And what can result - when positive parenting is not utilized - is a lifetime of acting out in order to get attention.
Instead, demonstrate positive parenting by celebrating the accomplishments of your children. Have a special dinner for a great report card, hang good schoolwork up on the refrigerator, give consistent verbal praise for a job well done, and take special notice of good behavior in social settings. Children will respond to positive parenting. Anyone who has experienced it will attest to the fact that a child's face will light up when you verbally validate good behavior. They'll be sure to repeat it because it earned them high regard and a pat on the back.
Positive parenting is not a complicated concept. Children are people too. And if we take into account our own experiences as adults, it's not difficult to see how positive parenting works. How often do we, as adults, wish that our hard work would be noticed in our place of work? Instead it seems as though we're only addressed to be dressed down for something we failed to accomplish. After awhile, this negative attention can really beat you down emotionally. It seems futile to keep putting in the hard work when it's never noticed.
Children feel the same way. If their positive accomplishments are never validated, then they don't learn to continue. Often we assume that they know their efforts are appreciated. But those who practice positive parenting know that a child's efforts must be verbally recognized - consistently and enthusiastically.
Positive parenting can reap enormous rewards. Not only will you encourage the healthy development of your child through their adolescence but you will ensure them an adulthood filled with self-confidence, emotional health, and happiness. And there's no greater reward than that.
For easy to understand, in depth information about parenting visit our ezGuide 2 Parenting
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