Every child is created equal, but they are not created the same. As parents a lot of heart ache and trouble can be avoided if we follow a few key principles out lined in the book The 10 Basic Principles of Good Parenting (Steinburg, 2005). Keep pace with your child’s development, adjust your parenting to your child’s temperament, have patience during developmental transitions, and accept your changing role as a parent.
Keep Pace with Your Child’s Development
As your child grows and develops, they will be acquiring new and important skills and cognitive abilities. Our job as a parent should be to provide them with guidance and experiences that are fitting to their cognitive and emotional abilities. The first mistake we could make is to expect our children to act like miniature adults. How often do we become frustrated when a three or four-year-old becomes restless or cranky after being expected to sit quietly for half an hour or more? How often does their clumsiness threaten to make us lose our temper? We have to realize that it is not reasonable to expect a young child to sit and focus for very long, and that even slightly older children will need some breaks. Their attention span simply isn’t long enough. The second mistake we make is not allowing them to start taking control of themselves. Children as young as two may be ready to start making simple decisions like what shirt they want to wear or what fruit they want for snack. These decisions will help them further develop.
Adjust Your Parenting to Your Child’s Temperament
From the moment we are born, each one of us has a unique temperament and character. Some children handle stimulation well, others can only take a little bit, some children are cheerful, others often cranky, some are naturally quiet, others loud and rambunctious. None of these traits are inherently bad or good, but they require different styles of parenting. It isn’t productive to put an easily overwhelmed child in a chaotic environment and just expect them to handle it well. We should do what we can to slowly help them moderate and self sooth until they will be able to adjust to different situations more easily. The same is true of the hyperactive child. Don’t set them up for failure by expecting them to be perfectly still and quiet for long.
Have Patience During Developmental Transitions
The development of a child is almost never an evenly paced and linear thing. Children tend to grow in short spurts, intermixed with periods of rest or even what seems like slight regression. No child will go through the different stage of cognitive and physical development at the same rate as another child. These stages of growth will happen throughout all of childhood and adolescence. During these times of growth your child’s brain and body are literally reassembling themselves. This will cause them to mature in certain aspects but can also lead to moments of immaturity because of all the different kinds of stress put on their mental and physical capacities. Remember this and be patient with them.
Accept Your Changing Role as a Parent
All of us know that our role as a parent will change as your child grows older, but it can sometimes be hard to actually make those changes. Sometimes parents resist changing because they don’t want to accept that they too are growing older, sometimes it is out of fear of letting your child grow and leave you, sometimes it is an inability to change old habits. Not allowing your relationship with child to gradually and naturally change however, is a recipe for disaster. It is only natural through middle childhood and adolescents for your child to become more preoccupied with friendships and peers. They will need you to support them as they branch out from your control. This is a time where you begin to transition from making most of the decisions for your child to counseling with them and allowing them to choose for themselves. If you insist in trying to make all the decisions for your child then they will likely rebel from you, or they will never learn to make decisions for themselves and become completely dependent on you even as an adult.
As you navigate raising your own unique children, try to keep these principles straight and continue to learn about best child rearing practices. For more information on specific stages in child development visit https://www.cdc.gov/ncbddd/actearly/milestones/index.html
Sources:
Steinberg, L. D. (2005). The ten basic principles of good parenting. New York: Simon & Schuster Paperbacks.
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