5 Good Parenting Skills

Good parenting skills are something any parent should have. It would be easier if we all had “good parenting” genes but the truth is, parenting is something we need to learn. So what are good parenting skills? They are skills that not only help parents discipline their children but also help strenghtening the bond between parents and children and help the parenting journey being more peaceful and harmonious.

Many parents see their parenting “job” limited to yelling, punishing, struggling with their children. But parenting isn’t about this! Parenting is about teaching, sharing, helping, loving… things that good parenting skills help parents getting.

In this article, I’m going to give you 5 good parenting skills that are important to understand and apply. Then we’ll see what parents who are having a really hard time managing their child can do if parenting tips aren’t enough.

5 Good Parenting Skills – S.P.E.L.L.*

S.P.E.L.L.* means Share, Prevent, Explain, Listen, Love. I’m going to detail these 5 good parenting skills below. They are in my opinion the basics of good parenting and will hopefully help you improve the way you parent your child. Don’t just read these good parenting skills, apply them!

• Share: Sharing with your child is essential. Parents should learn to be vulnerable in front of their kids. This means that showing to your child that you too can fail, are unable to do some things, have fears, is important because children have a hard time seeing their parents as “humans”! Trying to pass as a super hero doesn’t help your child relating to you and feeling close to you. Sharing stories about your childhood will help your child understand you too were a child once and that you do understand his feelings. This will also help your child sharing things with you.
  

• Prevent: Most parents wait until a bad behavior happen in their child to say “no”, punish, try to communicate with a child who’s throwing a tantrum. This is useless. Instead of reacting when something like this happen, it’s better to prevent a bad behavior from happening by telling to your child how you expect him to behave before going somewhere with him for instance. If you discuss a bad behavior when your child is quiet and nice and open to the discussion, you’ll effectively communicate and your child will understand that his bad behavior isn’t acceptable. Among the good parenting skills, this one is the most overlooked by parents.
  

• Explain: Because children don’t perceive the world around them as we do, they need explanations for everything. Indeed, many things that are obvious to you aren’t to your child. This includes the reason why you say “no” to something, where you’re going and when you’ll be back exactly, what is death, why does his aunt seem to have the same mother as yours (my daughter asked me this!). This is important as there are a lot of things that are pretty blurry for kids and explanations reassure them and also help them accepting and obeying rules. This is one of the good parenting skills that make parenting easier.
  

• Listen: Listening to what your child has to say is important. I’m talking about active listening here. When your child tells you something about his day, don’t turn your back and cook! Take a moment, sit down, make eye contact, ask questions, react. Many parents neglect this but it’s important for your child’s self esteem, for his learning of respect, ect. Always make time for this.
  

• Love: Obvious, right? I’m sure you wonder why love is part of the good parenting skills, well simply because expressing our love for our children is something that many parents don’t do often enough. It’s crucial because even if your love for your child is obvious to you, children don’t necessarily know we love them if we don’t tell them and they can sometimes think that when we punish them, it means we don’t love them. That’s why it’s important to say “I love you”, to make clear to your child that even if you have to punish his bad behavior, it has nothing to do with him because you love him unconditionnaly. Children really need to be reassured about this.

I do hope these 5 good parenting skills are showing you how you can maybe change a few things in the way you communicate with your child and react to his good and bad behavior. Good parenting skills are pretty easy to apply!

What if applying good parenting skills seems ineffective on your child?

With some children applying good parenting skills isn’t always very effective. It’s unfortunate but true. When bad habits are anchored, it’s difficult to communicate and put a stop to a recurring bad behavior. What is needed in such situations is a coherent and consistent parenting method. A real change in your parenting.

Some parenting programs exist that provide just this: a detailed parenting method that guides parents step by step implementing effective parenting techniques. It’s difficult as a parent to come up with new parenting techniques, change completely the way you react to your child’s bad behavior, communicate and share. That’s why parenting programs exist. Not all are good but some have really been proven to work with very difficult children.

On top of good parenting skills, the techniques taught by parenting programs offer solutions that last. There’s a solution to every parenting problems. Children who are “impossible” to manage don’t exist. I can assure you that.

Take the first step towards better parenting and sign up below to receive 2 FREE parenting ebooks (Smart Parenting & Keeping Kids Busy) along with parenting advices and other free resources by Laura Kaine!

*S.P.E.L.L. (5 good parenting skills: Share, Prevent, Explain, Listen, Love) is copyright protected and owned by Laura Kaine

Related posts:

By Laura Kaine in Blog, General parenting on December 20, 2011