The Power Of Positive Parenting
The one thing you can rely on about being a parent is that your child's behavior will sometimes frustrate you. This doesn't mean you are a bad parent, and it doesn't mean that your child is uncontrollable.
Even the happiest of family households can suffer tension and stress when dealing with children's behavior.
Parents may feel upset and drained if they find themselves having to 'battle' with their child over such everyday issues as mealtimes, shopping, or bed- time.
Since you love and care for your children, you will try your best to deal with such difficult behavior. However, it's unreasonable to think that you can be a perfect parent — we just aren't built like superman or super- woman.
When you think about it though, it's not too surprising that being a parent can be tough. Raising the next generation is a vitally important task requiring effort and patience, yet most of us begin our parenting careers unprepared for what lies ahead. More often than not we learn how to raise our children through trial and error. And no matter how much experience we gain, our children (and indeed
the everyday experiences of life itself) always seem to be able to come up with something new for us to deal with.
So how do we know if we are bringing up our kids well, and how do we go about reducing the stresses that occur when we find ourselves struggling with behaviors we just can't seem to get a handle on?
As a parent and psychologist who has spent more than 20 years researching why children behave the way they do, I believe there is simply no single right way to be a parent. It is up to you to decide what values, skills and behaviors you want to encourage in your child and to develop your own approach to dealing with your child's behavior.