20 Handy Parenting Resources You Should Not Go Without

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People say that bringing a child into this world is the most difficult thing. There is no denying that it surely is, but can you tell what is even more difficult? It is parenting that child in a positive way so he develops a strong personality benefiting his own life and the society around him. As Benjamin Spock says, “The child supplies the power but the parents have to do the steering.” The following are parenting resources for the core areas which the parents need to understand fully so that they can help their children out in the best possible manner. These resources will come in handy as and when the child grows into a particular stage.

Child Nutrition

In a large survey conducted by American Dietetic Association Foundation of the children under the age of 12, it was found that these children looked up to their parents as their nutrition role models. It is either going to be their mom, dad, or both of them who will become their nutrition role model.

Ron Kleinman who is chief of pediatrics at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston says:

 “Many parents don’t really think of themselves as role models.” He further added “Parents expect their kids to do things, like exercise, that they themselves don’t do. You can’t lie on the couch watching TV, snacking on potato chips – yet tell your child to go outside and get some exercise. It just doesn’t work that way.”

It is better for the parents to buy fruits and vegetables instead of snacks, and teach the basics of portion control while eating meals. Apart from this, they should also track their TV time and make them value family mealtimes. Here are some further resources which can help in understanding child nutrition better:

Food and Fitness

Childhood Nutrition

Healthy Family and Kids

Child Nutrition

Safety of the Children

Every now and then news of children being kidnapped, molested, and killed are heard. Even imagining such a thing for your own child will bring shudders down your spine. Most of the time, the targets of such criminals are random strangers. It might just happen that your child is at the wrong place at the wrong time all by himself giving chance to the strangers to take advantage of his vulnerability.

It is the duty of parents to ensure that their children are entirely safe and secure at all times. He must be guided not to talk to strangers and taught some of the most important self-defense techniques. Give them enough confidence so that they can share anything with you or even with their teachers. This will help in catching any kind of problem as soon as possible without resulting in serious consequences.

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One can learn more tips and techniques about ensuring child safety through the following resources:

Child Safety

Teen Drug and Alcohol Abuse Guide

Family Centered Practice and Child Safety Management 

Child Safety Books and Links

Homeless and Runaway Youth Resources

Understanding Child Development

“At the beginning of all growth, everything imitates. All of us, when we were children, also only imitated. But children grow up and begin their own development,” says Pramoedya Ananta Toer, Bumi Manusia. It is the parents who the children will be looking up to while developing habits which later leads to the formulation of their personality. The parents must be knowledgeable about the phases of child development and should adopt necessary measures to ensure that their child is on the right track.

One can divide the development of children into a number of phases depending on their age. The parents need to see that they are treating their children in the right manner considering the age of their child. Understating child development will play a huge role in becoming a great parent. For more information pertaining to child development, one can visit the following links:

Child Development Institute

Learning and Development

Developmental Milestones

Child Development in the First Five Years

Disciplining Children

There needs to be a right balance in parenting as too lenient or too strict parents often lead to raising children who have flaws in their personality. One of the first things which are learned by children is obeying, and discipline is a way through which this objective can be achieved. These measures might be tailored according to the personality, mental capability, and age of the child. Discipline is providing your child with a moral compass so that he can learn to follow the right set of values so that he grows to become a responsible adult. There are basically four different styles of parenting:

• Authoritative: Such parents implement strict rules and values in the lives of their children but do provide the freedom and flexibility to let the children have some fun within those boundaries. 100 percent of these parents have a good relationship with their children.
• Authoritarian: This involves setting very strict rules for your children and leaving zero room for responsiveness for them. They are involved in each and every aspect of their children’s lives. Only 41 percent of these parents enjoy a good relationship with their children.
• Permissive: They have a high level of responsiveness towards the child and do not have a lot of rules. Even if the child showcases inappropriate behavior, they rarely punish him. Around 86 percent of such parents have a warm relationship with their children.

For more information on disciplining children, follow these authentic and valuable links:

Effective Discipline for Children

Discipline

Behavior Problems: Discipline that Works

Discipline for Young Children

Support from the Family

“Encourage and support your kids because children are apt to live up to what you believe of them,” said Lady Bird Johnson. For every relationship to be stronger, there needs to be extensive communication between the two parties involved. The need for having excellent communication increases between parents and children because of so many other boundaries set to maintain respect and discipline.

Verbal praise and support mean a lot for children and when they are assured that their parents are always with them, their confidence level and the feeling of self-worth is enhanced. For example some mothers would lie to alleviate their children’s deepest fears. Gary Smalley who was a family therapist said, “Affirming words from moms and dads are like light switches. Speak a word of affirmation at the right moment in a child’s life and it’s like lighting up a whole room of possibilities.”

Children who are dealing with issues like the divorce between their parents need more support from them to cope with the issue. Around 73 percent of the children of divorced parents believe that they would have been a different person if the divorce didn’t happen. This shows that parents need to be there with the children to ease their pain because their griefs is far more intense than that of anyone else.

Here are some of the useful links which can help parents in understanding all such issues more comprehensively:

Supporting Families: Children are the Winners

Military Family Support

Montessori Parent

Children and Divorce

The following words have described parenting in the best way making it rather simple but requiring mindfulness and dedication:

“If there is one thing developmental psychologists have learned over the years, it is that parents don’t have to be brilliant psychologists to succeed. They don’t have to be supremely gifted teachers. Most of the stuff parents do with flashcards and special drills and tutorials to hone their kids into perfect achievement machines don’t have any effect at all. Instead, parents just have to be good enough. They have to provide their kids with stable and predictable rhythms. They need to be able to fall in tune with their kids’ needs, combining warmth and discipline. They need to establish the secure emotional bonds that kids can fall back upon in the face of stress. They need to be there to provide living examples of how to cope with the problems of the world so that their children can develop unconscious models in their heads.” – David Brooks, The Social Animal: The Hidden Sources of Love, Character, and Achievement.