Three Lessons I Want My Child to Learn during the Course of His Life: An Opinion Essay

“Parent-child relationships. Among these are quality parenting practices including committing to one-on-one time with each child, affirming their strengths, reinforcing positive behaviors, listening without judgment, accepting ambivalent feelings, reflecting understanding, connecting words to feelings, allowing silence and giving children space to not talk.” 1

Parenting plays a role in a person’s identity through the example that a parent sets and through the love, acceptance, and encouragement they give to a child. When a child is neglected in parenting they will grow up

Frederick Douglass once said, “It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.” Parents want the best for their children. The dream is always to raise a happy and successful child. However, with so much external information from the media and other parents, it’s hard to know what is truly the best for a child. With thousands of years of parenting experience under the belt of human history, one pay expect that a perfect style of parenting had been found. However, every child is different, thus preventing the discovery of one foolproof method of child rearing. With this obstacle in mind, a disgruntled parent may ask “Does it even matter?” No matter the parenting style, there will always be children that make decisions that result in being considered unsuccessful. With this information in mind, I suggest that there is no perfect parenting style for all, only a style that will be perfect for the specific child.

Early childhood is an incredibly important part of a person's life when they learn critical life lessons. The way that someone parents can have lasting and far-reaching effects on their children which is why it is important, especially in the early years of a child's life, to parent in a way that successfully teaches children to conduct themselves in an appropriate manner. This means that parents should abandon the traditional reward and punishment system and adopt something known as gentle parenting. Mainstream parenting focuses heavily on rewards and punishments from past action, whereas gentle parenting focuses on compassion and instilling discipline for future actions to teach a child right from wrong. A few key points of gentle parenting include having a strong child-parent relationship in which the child feels loved, leading by example, and having a symbiotic relationship between the parent and the child.

A parent’s parenting styles are as diverse as the world we live in today. Nowadays, parents only want what is best for their children and their parenting styles plays a crucial role in the development of children which will in the long run, not only effect the child’s childhood years, but later prolong into their adult life as well.

Children do not come with guidelines or instructions. What they do come with is a crucial set of physical and emotional needs that need to be met. To raise children properly, parents duties are not limited to just food, shelter and protection. Parents are largely responsible for their children’s success in life. Parents are required to teach and educate children. They have to shape knowledge and character into their children to prepare them to face the real world. To be successful with this, parents must provide self esteem needs, teach moral and values and provide discipline that is both effective and appropriate. As the generations have changed, many parenting styles have evolved, as well.

Parenting is not one of the easiest jobs in the world to have; you either are responsible enough to parent or you're not responsible enough.You have to be able to raise a child from birth and teach he/she all the necessary tools to succeed in life. As said in The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Social Work, “Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood” (245). All parents will raise their children in different ways, whether they are very strict or they’re lenient, others can be easy going and strict depending on the situation and the way they group up will shape them into who they become as adults as shown in The Glass Castle with Jeannette Walls and her parents.

(112) Parents shape their children’s development by meeting their emotional, physical and social needs.

Webster’s dictionary defines parenting as the process of raising and educating a child from birth until adulthood. As someone who parented four biological children, and earned the title of grandma, I can offer a lot of personal insight into the subject of parenting, and my first pearl of wisdom is that parenting is harder than one would think. Children do not come with an operation manual and it usually only takes new parents only a few days before they realize how blissfully delusional they were. Naturally, well meaning parents who understand the implications of their influence on shaping their child into happy, healthy, and successful adults, are naturally humbled with the awesome responsibility, and seek to develop a parenting strategy with positive empirical results.

One of the great paradoxes in life is trying to impart wisdom that you’ve garnered in your own life to others while letting them retain their own identity. I have found in my own life, as many others have found in theirs, that it can be difficult to learn vicariously through another person, rather than having to learn from your own life experiences. Still though, there is probably not a single person who would say that if they had the knowledge and wisdom that they currently have at a young age, would not do some things differently. As such, every parent faces the difficult conundrum of trying to pass down to their children that which they have learned in their life in a way that is both relevant and convincing but also allows for the fact

Parenting includes providing physical care, reliable shelter, education, medical care, physical safety as well as nourishment. There is also a social aspect which entails providing emotional support, love,

However, parents must realize that they have the most important role to play in the development of their child’s emotional and behavioral traits.

I view children as small individuals who need guidance, love, nurture, praise, and care. That’s why I aspire to help my children in every way I can. Without these things children are set up for failure. They will not be set up on a path to success if they are abandoned, and left to fend for themselves. At a very early age in life a child is able to form an attachment with his or her mother. I find it beneficial for a child to obtain a secure attachment that is why my philosophy on parenting is the way it is. I view children as active learners who want to gain knowledge. This is why parents need to be their lifelong teacher and coach. Children come out of the womb as a blank slate and it’s the parents job to help the child learn right from wrong, become independent, and to live a happy successful

As a parent it is a dream to have your child grow up into a responsible person. Even though every parent wishes the best for his or her child, at times bad parenting gets in the way of that goal. Bad parenting has many negative effects on the life of a child, so it is important for each and every parent to evaluate their parenting skills to know the effects they on their child. No parent is perfect but it is never wrong to try and be the best we can be. Since a parent guides the child, molding him or her into the person they virtually become a role model. Some causes of poor parenting skills include being a teen parent, and parents that having a substance abuse problems. Teen parents might have a hard time developing parenting skills, as they may not have the emotional or financial support to parent effectively. Bad parenting tends to lead to a number of problems in children such as inability to keep friendships and relationships, poor performance in school, and depression.

Parenting is not just an act of giving birth and raising children, but an art of ensuring that those kids become responsible in the society and fulfil their purpose in life.