Just A Little Parenting Help Improves Parenting Skill

Take the situation where a parent employs physical
punishment as a means of disciplining his child, for
example. Chances are that parents who use physical
punishment learned it from their parents. Most likely,
there was no real explanation of the negative consequences
involved.

With a little parenting help, from the parenting with love
and logical consequences approach, a parent can re-evaluate
his or her approach in light of what works better for both
the child and the parent.

In my case for example, as a parent, if I hit my child, I
would worry about possible legal issues. These days kids
talk to their peers in school about what is happening at
home. Kids have been known to turn their parents in to the
authorities. Moreover, communities these days do not favor
physical punishment as they once did. Hence, why bother to
indulge in physical discpline if it can lead to even more
strife between parent and child, or even involve the
neighbors? It's just not worth the trouble.

More importantly, many parents feel bad about hitting their
children. These parents understand it sets a bad example for
it teaches children that physical violence is okay. Some
kids, being the great mimickers they are, certainly will
learn this lesson. Many mothers and fathers, through a
little parenting help, will be relieved to find that there
exist better mothods of disciplining children than physical
punishment. What's more they will feel proud of their
parenting skill.

The parenting help offered here is from my own experience.
This experience tells me that too often the desire to hit
my children comes from my own frustration with them. I may
be frustrated with them because I have failed to handle a
particular situation properly, or because I had a stressful
day at work, or maybe I am just plain cranky. No matter
what the case, I am the adult. It is I who needs to be in
control of myself, which in itself, teaches the child to
maintain control of himself. Nothing teaches better than
example. And so, I need to learn to use my brain rather
than my brawn. Admittedly this can be challenging at times.
Yet, it is a relief to me as a parent that I've ruled
physical punishment out as a method of disciplining my child.

Another logical consequence of physical punishment is that,
due to its severity, the child learns to hide or lie about
any negative behavior, thus creating a pattern of further
undesirable behavior. Since the child’s negative behavior
remains hidden, the parent remains blind to what is really
happening in his child’s life and is, therefore, unable to
support change toward more positive behavior.

Moreover, through a little parenting help, a parent can
learn to refrain from both physical and severe punishment
because she comes to understand, not only the negative
logical consequences of her behavior, but the positive as
well. A positive logical consequence of refraining from
physical or harsh discipline is that the child learns that
his parents accept him despite his flaws. This teaches the
child to accept both his positive and negative sides and
not deny they exist. Importantly the child feels loved as
the whole person he or she is, and not for just what he is
good at.

As you might imagine this unconditional love will reap big
benefits in the future by resulting in a stronger emotional
bond between parent and child-another benefit of a little
parenting help.

The child in realizing he is loved by his parents, despite
his flaws, not only learns to love himself, flaws and all,
but since he recognizes his negative side, can also choose
to cope with it for the better. What’s more, this accepting
of both his negatives and positives gives him the ability
to accept others and move from the black and white
simplified world of childhood to the gray, complex world of
adulthood.

Parents may decide to change their discipline pattern in
one situation that can then generalize to other child
rearing situations, which is why just a little parenting help
can lead to a great improvement in parenting skill.