Nothing is more thrilling than becoming a parent. You can find some handy advice in Social and Emotional Development article to make you a better parent and take some of the uncertainty out of the process.
If you have two or more children in the house, enlist the help of older siblings to care for the younger ones. Older siblings can help with playtime and can even monitor bath times (depending on their age). If you have a teenager and a young child, you might also be able to benefit from lower cost babysitting and teach your older child some responsibility in the process.
For young children, don't underestimate the power of naps. They need more sleep than an older kid. Children can usually stop napping around five or six years old. Young toddlers should be taking up to two naps a day, and children 1.5 and older should still be taking one nap per day.
Take good care of your relationship with your spouse. If you and your partner are on the same page and communicating well with each other, your children will grow up in a positive environment. In addition, your children need to understand that there are times they can't be your sole focus.
Reading your child a bed-time story is a great bonding experience at the end of the day. After dinner and bath-time, put your child into his or her pajamas and curl up with a book or two. Laying in bed reading, helps your little one to wind down after a busy day of learning and exploring. Beyond having a love for books, your little one will look forward to bedtime, each night.
If your child was adopted, be prepared to face the questions they will have when they are old enough to understand. Adopted children are going to have questions and will look to you for the answers. It's best to be honest about your child's biological family, because lying about it may cause strife in your relationship when your child inevitably learns the truth.
A great Social and Emotional Development tip is to do everything you can to boost your child's confidence. The one and only goal of a parent is to instill confidence in their child. Without instilling enough confidence, children can go through life feeling worthless and feeling like they'll never measure up.
See if you can obtain digital texts for your child to use at home. That negates the need for them to carry heavy books back and forth and the possibility that they will forget the text needed for that night's critical assignment. More and more schools are going to digital texts and the advantages are enormous.
Avoid using other children you know as benchmarks for your own child's rate of growth or development. Every child acquires skills like walking, talking, reading, and so forth at his or her own pace, and it is much healthier to bring up any concerns you have with your child's pediatrician.
Live what you say, don't just say it. Children will learn by your actions as much as your words. Show them how you would like them to behave. If you don't want them to smoke, you have to not smoke yourself. If you'd like them to eat healthy, make the same healthy choices with them. Even kids can see right through hypocrisy!
Be willing to compromise with your children, in order to minimize frustrating disagreements. Many kids are amazingly stubborn and sometimes, their parents react by refusing to see their point of view. You should keep some perspective when your children try to argue with you. Be open to letting them get their way on points that do not really matter.
Children can be inquisitive to an exasperating degree. When they inquire about rules that you set as a parent, do not rely on the well-worn "because I said so" defense. Instead, try justifying your rules by saying, "because it makes me happy." While your kids may not understand the complexities of right and wrong, they have a thorough understanding of their parents' feelings.
If children need to use a computer for school work, make sure it's set up in a public space of the house so that computer use can be monitored for chatting with friends, looking at websites not related to the assignment, or playing video games instead of completing homework.
After reading the above advice, you now have a good foundation to build a great parenting journey on. Try to remember that each person has a unique parenting style. There's not one single thing that will work for everyone. Use whatever advice you like the most and helps you the best. Remember that parenting is an exciting time for both you and your child, so enjoy every moment you have, because they do indeed grow up so fast.
