Conscious Parenting in Education and Buddy Parenting

The concept of being a conscious parent has come up a lot in recent years. Conscious parents, who have an idea about the physical and mental development stages of children, observe their relationship with their child well. Conscious parenting, which comes from the concept of "mindfulness", which has become popular recently, means having a high awareness of the child's behaviors and words. Conscious parenting, which advocates that children should react calmly and thoughtfully to their positive or negative behaviors, is a parenting approach that aims to strengthen the parent-child relationship in a positive way. Being a conscious parent supports taking a more moderate attitude when faced with undesirable behavior instead of getting angry and shouting.

There are various models in many roles in life. In parenting, there are authoritarian, democratic, permissive, and disinterested parenting models in the literature. Many of these combine with the parenting that parents see and model from their own parents, what they see from the environment, and their own ideal parenting, resulting in a unique parental model. In fact, although there are models, each child's cognitive areas, social emotional aspects and interests are strong, and the parenting model is different and unique from each other. When environmental and educational factors come into play, a unique parent model emerges in itself.

Let's consider together the concept of "friend-parenting", which is frequently mentioned today, which is also related to the concept of conscious parenting, which includes features from modern, democratic and permissive parenting models. Let's first consider the basic responsibilities of a parent; unconditional love, trust, order, healthy living and development conditions. So what concepts are included in the definition of a friend? Love, sharing, attention and approval.

 The two different roles also have common features; attention and love! Both conscious parenting and friend parenting say that since each child's interests and strengths are different, it may be a good start to try to recognize his temperament and accompany him to the games he enjoys in order to create a good relationship with our child. Every child loves to play games. Play is a tool that unleashes our imagination, gets excited and socializes many times.

If a parent does not teach the order and boundaries to the child and waits for the child to discover, as a result, an unhappy child may be encountered who feels unsuccessful in the negativities he encounters and is excluded by his environment because he does not know his limits. Like every individual, children, due to disorder and uncertainty, worry and need boundaries, even though they cannot make sense of it in this way. Our friends don't set limits on us, so it shouldn't be surprising to find a child whose parents act like friends in that sense and get angry when they set limits. Of course, as in all matters, it is not what we do that makes the difference, but how we do it. While drawing the boundaries, determining the needs with our children, asking their opinions, being democratic but determined will lead us to a healthy relationship. It is important to analyze needs with our children when setting boundaries.

Listening: Listening and observing carefully while communicating with children allows us to have a better idea of ​​the child's needs. While this enables the parent to obtain the information they need, it also contributes to the child's self-confidence level.

Getting rid of Prejudices: Parents should approach their children's attitudes towards a certain situation or event without prejudice. Reflecting the expectations and prejudices about the child to the child may adversely affect the child's behavior.

Emotional Awareness: Parents, like all people, can sometimes succumb to their emotions and react emotionally. Communicating with the child without emotional and unfiltered reactions and being aware of the feelings helps the child to gain emotional awareness.

Self-Control Skill: Self-control skill is directly related to emotional awareness. At this point, the parent becomes aware of their own feelings and takes care of their feelings instead of reacting emotionally. He thinks before he reacts.

Compassion: It is important to make the child feel that we are always there for them, both in conscious parenting and in friend parenting. Approaching the child with empathy and compassion nurtures the relationship of trust.

Conscious parenting allows you to do this with children while drawing boundaries in the peer-parenting relationship. It is possible through conscious parenting to set boundaries to know the child, to know his needs, and to benefit both the parent and the child. The dimensions of conscious parenting are very important for a healthy and balanced relationship between the child and the parent.