Raising a child is no easy feat. Parents play a pivotal role in shaping a conducive environment and ensuring they are exposed to valuable experiences – those that induce worthy values and virtues.
These are some things that we can do to give your children the best, all of which they would be much grateful for when they recall their childhood in years to come.
1. Let children play
According to The Tibetan Art of Parenting: From Before Conception Through Early Childhood (2008), by Anne Maiden Brown, PhD who is also psychotherapist and social psychologist , a child has a natural phase of simplicity of mind before it is developmentally ready to interrelate experiences, senses, emotions and thoughts with its situation and past experiences. As we progress into the modern era of technology, it is a sad reality that many children never fully get to enjoy the innocence of childhood – looking forward to physical play time and immersing in care-free imagination like the olden days.
So let your children enjoy their physical activities with you. Don’t neglect the imitation, memorization, touch and movement. These are the memories that your children will look back to fondly which will support them when they grow older.
2. Nurturing the environment
The environment for learning needs to be clean and nurturing. Mistakes need to be corrected without judgement. Children are vulnerable to impressions and need to be protected and healed when they experience fearful or intruding images.
Focus on the core values. Compassion, honesty and sharing are valued qualities in children and can be instilled in young children through their natural imitations of adults through discipline as needed and through recognition and celebration of prized behaviours.
3. Exploring the world through stories
Studies have shown that reading is an important activity for your children to engage in throughout their childhood. Not only does it stimulate the development of skills such as speech and writing, it also encourages cognitive thinking and creativity.
If they are still young, read together with them and take the opportunity to teach them new words as you go along. Most often than not, children books also encompass good values that can teach your children right from wrong, so this doubles up as an opportunity to foster ethics for their personal development.
Listening to audiobooks can help bridge the gap between decoding words and assigning meaning. Receiving information both visually and audibly reinforces word recognition, improves fluency, builds vocabulary and supports the development of comprehension skills.
4. Allow them to pursue their passion
As parents, we want our kids to have the best in their lives and have the capacity to pursue their dreams. However, more often than not, many youths and adults hold back on their dreams.
Encourage them from the get-go. As your children ponder upon their options, the best advice is: Risk everything. Plans B, C, D, and E will always be there. Grab Plan A.
Above all, the truly irreplaceable gift you can ever give your child is unconditional love. Offer your presence – always encourage, always comfort.
Share your thoughts on how efficient these parenting rules may be on your opinion. Leave a comment with anything you believe it’s worth adding.