How to Adjust your Parenting Style

By: Sarah Edwards - Updated: 14 Oct 2012 | *Discuss

 

Parenting may well be the hardest, most demanding and certainly the most emotional thing you will ever have to do, and over time you will find that the style of parenting you use to help your children to grow and develop, will change and evolve-just like your children will.

There may well be a lot of help, advice and information available about parenting and parenting styles, and you will also receive lots of advice, help and ideas from friends and family, but there really are no hard and fast rules.

It is a good idea to try to accept the fact that although the way you bring up your children may well remain the same, the methods and styles that you employ will probably change. Over time you will find that the style of parenting you used when your children were tiny babies, may not work quite as effectively as they become toddlers or pre schoolers.

Babies and very young children require a lot of nurturing and pastoral care. They are given lots of allowances and flexibility when it comes to their behaviour patterns because they find it very difficult to understand what is right and what is obviously wrong.

Young children, as with all children, need to feel very secure and loved and this often means that parents find it incredibly difficult to discipline their children and maintain a consistent pattern of parenting style. It is very hard to make a young child understand that they cannot simply get what they want by throwing a big, dramatic tantrum, but this is what they will naturally do and parents find this type of behaviour particularly exasperating.

It is all too easy to simply give in and let your child have their own way, but allowing small things to pass you by when you child is just a toddler is one thing, while still allowing them to behave unreasonably once they get to pre school is quite another.

Apart from the fact that over permissive parenting isn’t good for you or your child, it really isn’t good for teachers to have to deal with a child who is clearly over indulged at home and allowed to get away with unreasonable behaviour.It is hard for teachers when the behaviour of one child dominates the classroom and impacts on the other children, and this is a really good reason for nipping any unwelcome behaviour in the bud well before your child starts school.

Parenting can be a lonely existence, and parents who are struggling to find the right parenting style while realising that something has to change can feel isolated. In this case it is a good idea to seek out some toddler groups or other casual social gatherings and share your worries and concerns with other parents who have children of a similar age.

By seeing other children ‘in action’ and watching how their parents deal with different situations, you will often find a way to change or moderate your own parenting styles and methods and this will undoubtedly have a big impact on your child. You will find that by modifying your parenting style and making some subtle changes and adjustments, life will gradually become less stressful, your child will be happier and you will have a proper plan in place that you can put into action when needed.

Parenting is hard, but the only way through those hard times is to recognise that you need to make some changes. Look at those changes as a step towards becoming an even more accomplished parent and as a really positive influence on your child’s development, both in the immediate time frame and in the future.

Do not be resistant to changing your parenting style, instead embrace it and acknowledge that your child is growing and changing too and that the boundaries and rules you used when they were very young, although useful to them at that stage of their life, now need to be adjusted to help them even further.

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