A Good Parenting

Prenting involves a great deal of consistency and routine, which gives children a sense of control.

Good parenting focuses on developing independence in children, so redundancy becomes the aim for parents.

Good parenting involves a style that considers children’s age and stage of development. That is, there is a match between expectations, discipline and resilience-building strategies and children’s developmental age.

Good parenting aims at socialising kids. Parents provide children and young people with social scripts to enable them to negotiate their expanding social horizons. This social scripting helps them negotiate their online and offline worlds.

Good parenting develops a growth mindset in kids rather than a mindset that says that a child’s intelligence is fixed. Parenting that develops a growth mindset links kids’ success to effort and strategy as opposed to purely recognising and developing natural ability.

Good parenting focuses on encouragement over praise, consequences over punishment and cooperation over obedience. This ensures parenting matches the times in which we live.

Good parenting insists that kids help at home without being paid so that learn to be givers, not takers.

Good parenting is nuanced to take into account children’s birth order, personality and gender differences. One parenting size doesn’t fit all kids.

According to the best available research the best parenting stye is an authoritative style which is a balance of firmness and nurturance. The outcomes are generally best for kids in terms of academic success, mental health and good well-being when they are raised by parents that use an authoritative style.