A team of human development experts got together in the United States a few years ago to draw up a model of parent education that could be utilised across the country by organisations and agencies that serve families.
After long debate and widespread consultation, the team came up with a set of six core parent skills that, in its opinion, ought to be taught in any parent education setting. Below is a brief description of the skills, intended only to provide some food for thought and stimulation for further learning.
1. Care for self
Caring for oneself means knowing and understanding oneself, managing life's demands and establishing clear direction. Although not having a direct impact on children, 'care for self' provides a background of security, predictability and purpose that indirectly influences the lives of everyone in the family.
For example, having a sense of purpose in parenting will help a parent choose the way he or she guides a child. A parent who is motivated in his or her own life will be more capable of motivating a child. And a parent who feels connected with other people and supported by them will find it natural to nurture a child.
While 'care for self' does not necessarily have to come before other parenting skills, couples planning a family or expecting their first child are in a good position to start developing this aspect before they begin to concentrate on the child.
Important 'care for self' practices include managing personal stress, managing family resources, offering support and accepting it from others, recognising one's own parenting strengths and weaknesses, and having a sense of purpose in setting child-rearing goals.
2. Understand
To understand children, their development, needs and unique characters is vital for parents. Each child is different, not only in abilities but also in the way he or she sees the world. Understanding children can result in less conflict in relationships with them. Understanding is also an important part of helping children become secure and healthy people. Children are not likely to become caring, loving people if they have not experienced understanding from people who are close to them.
To understand your children better, read up about the physical, social and psychological stages of childhood and adolescence; observe your children and the way they develop; and recognise how they influence and respond to what happens around them.
3. Guide
Parents are faced with a difficult balancing act in establishing authority: to use their power to place reasonable limits on their children while gradually giving them freedom by encouraging them to become more and more responsible for themselves. Parents have the responsibility to use their superior knowledge and wisdom to set limits that protect their children and show concern for the welfare of others. They may want to teach their children to inhibit destructive behaviour and engage in action that helps others.
Children, on the other hand, seek freedom from such constraint even as they need guidance and structure. Their growth as individuals depends on making choices and facing the consequences of their own decisions.
Some of the important things you could do in guiding include modelling the desired behaviour, establishing and maintaining reasonable limits, providing children with opportunities to learn responsibility appropriate to their age, convey basic values about human decency, teach problem-solving skills, monitor their activities, and facilitate their contact with peers and adults.
4. Nurture
Nurturing may be the most important thing a parent can do for their children. It helps them develop into competent and healthy adults.
Nurturing can be challenging because a family may often be overstretched emotionally. Children also have different needs. By learning to attend to their children's needs, by building a positive relationship, and by sending consistent messages of love and support, parents can do a good job at nurturing.
Some of the critical nurturing practices involve expressing affection and compassion, fostering children's self-respect and hope, listening and attending to their feelings and ideas, and teaching kindness.
5. Motivate
Motivating children includes promoting intellectual development. Parents who take responsibility as their children's teacher seriously, and who perform their teaching functions effectively and sensitively throughout their children's lives, are more likely than other parents to have children who become confident and skilled learners and who attain high ideals of educational achievement.
Teach children about themselves, others and the world around them; stimulate curiosity, imagination and the search for knowledge; help children sort out and understand the information they receive.
6. Advocate
Besides working directly on their children's and their own growth and development, parents could also work to increase the probability that their family's and children's needs are met by the community. They seek out useful and important services, represent their children's needs to institutions, and speak up and take action if they feel that policies or practices need to be changed.
Children whose parents 'advocate' for them are less likely than other children to fall through the cracks or be offered services that simply don't fit. They build relationships with other families and groups in their community; they find, use and, when necessary, create community resources that benefit their children and others; and they seek to stimulate social change in order to create a supportive environment for families.
Source: National Extension Parent Education Model of Critical Parenting Practices. www.cyfernet.org/parenting_practices