Parenting Handbook

Parents often say to me, “You know, there is no handbook on how to raise your kid!” Although there are a lot of self-help books, they often don’t respond to the specific situations that arise in families. I have worked with families of young and old children for the past 20 years in my psychotherapy practice, and have identified some of the very important lessons I’ve learned from helping parents manage difficult problems that develop with their children. I do respond to the crises that the parents present, but often, I can make recommendations for them to make some changes in their parenting that will have long term, far reaching effects on their success as parents. Some of these are outlined below.

1. Show your child unconditional love.

Emphasis on “showing” the love. And showing it all of the time, even when it’s necessary to discipline, or express anger. Do it lovingly. You can love your child, and display that love, regardless of their behavior. It helps if you can separate the bad behavior, from the child as a person. Children are not bad. They do learn bad behaviors which it is important to change. They learn and change best in a loving environment. Create such an environment in your home, and their natural tendency towards positive growth will thrive.

2. Communicate.

Listening is the most important part of communicating. Observe and respond to their emotion, sometimes even more so than what they are actually saying. You don’t always have to try to fix things, just listen. Understandably, if your child is hurting emotionally you want them to feel better. As parents we want to take away their sadness, soothe their anger, get them to “stop crying.” Well, we all need to cry sometimes. Anger and sadness are normal and healthy, as are our other emotions. Respond to their show of feelings with support and compassion. Offer them the opportunity to talk about their feelings, especially anger so they don’t act it out or hold it in.

3. Reward your kids a lot.

Parents focus too much on what needs to be “fixed” in their child’s behavior, and thoughts. Try attending more to the things they are doing right. This will reinforce the ‘good’ behavior, helping to maintain it. Also it will provide a lot more positive and enjoyable interactions between you and your child. After all, the good stuff is much more important than the not-so-good stuff. Actually, the more they do “the good stuff” the less opportunity there will be for the bad behaviors. Try to ignore those, when possible.

4. Spend time doing things with your kids.

Especially as they get older. This gives you a lot of time to learn what’s going on with them. If you develop a strong relationship with your child they will come to you to help them make decisions, and allow you to have more input and influence in their lives. It will also make the difficult times, when you may have to discipline or punish them, more tolerable for them.

5. Help your child manage their stress.

Yes, kids have stress too. It’s not the same as adults, but is similar in a lot of ways. They have stress to perform well at school (as we do at work), stressful relationships, fears, and health and physical development concerns. Teach them what stress is, how to relax, how to make choices that will minimize their stress. Take their worries seriously. Observe their behavior to learn their specific signs of stress. Some of these include moodiness or persistent sadness or anger; deterioration of behavioral and/or academic school performance; drug or alcohol use; fighting with siblings or peers; defiance or oppositional behavior. Manage the behavior, but help them understand how their stress may be contributing to their problem behavior, or emotional upset.

6. Improve their self-esteem.

All children do some thing(s) well. Help them identify what their strengths are, encourage them, and offer a lot of praise for their good performance. Telling your child they do things well that they really don’t do well won’t make them feel better about themselves. In fact, it may cause them to distrust your positive feedback, and make them feel worse about themselves (and not trust you).

7. Encourage sound decision-making.

Making good decisions and solving problems includes common sense, impulse control, the use of good judgment, and sometimes a lot of creativity, among other things. Included here also is interpersonal problem-solving, especially conflict resolution. This emphasizes the importance of social skills, and emotional control. Model these skills. Talk about decisions that get made (by you, by them, by others, people in the media, etc.), eliciting your child’s opinion about whether they seem to be ‘good’ or ‘bad’ decisions. Ask what they might do in comparable situations. Remember, if you want them to continue to be open and honest with you, don’t judge nor criticize their choices. Do figure out how to give them constructive feedback. Consider your timing when you give feedback.

8. Teach them to express their emotions.

Especially anger has to be expressed in a healthy way. Teach your child from an early age to label their feelings, so they can talk about them and that it’s not always necessary to “act them out.” For example, while it may be appropriate to act out feelings of love or compassion (hugging, giving), usually it is not healthy to act out anger (e.g. tantrums, violence). The best way for a parent to teach this is to model the behavior yourself, even if this means that you have to learn some new things yourself. Also listen to them when they talk about their feelings, without you being compelled to “fix” them. Just let them know that you want to understand how they feel, and are available to help if they need or want it.

9. Provide good role models.

This is very important. Children learn a lot about how to manage relationships, emotions, communication, stress, and life in general from the significant people in their life. That’s you. Even when you are not directly teaching them, they are watching and learning. It is also very important that your child have people of both sexes to model healthy behavior. If you are a single parent, or in a non-traditional relationship, find someone that you trust to be involved in your child’s life that can provide the gender balance. On the other hand, do not feel obligated to push your child into a relationship with an absent parent who may not be able to provide the healthy balance that you seek for your son or daughter.

10. Fake it till you make it.

There may be some activities described above that you have not yet developed a strong feeling for. Perhaps this is because of how you were raised, and what you learned from your role models. Or maybe you never intended to have kids, but find that you have them and want them to grow up healthy and happy. Focus initially on the things that do feel more natural to you, and experiment with the others until you start to feel good about the effectiveness of your efforts. For example, clip you mouth shut while your child describes their feelings to you, and see that you can both survive with out your immediate criticism or suggestion. And then practice, practice, practice.

So there you have it. These 10 recommendations work, and work well. You may not become the “perfect” parent, but you will as perfect as you need to be to raise a healthy, happy child. Also, some of these suggestions will be helpful in improving some of your other relationships.