Parenting is a challenging job, but it is also quite rewarding at the same time. Since children in any society or culture grow up to become either supportive or destructive towards its prosperity, it is the responsibility of the government to make sure parents possess the required skills that would support their child’s development.
This parent-child relationship has a distinct influence on the child’s confidence level, academic excellence and cognitive development. It is therefore important to address the question, what is the best parenting policy for a child and 20 important practical tips.
These tips will not only educate you on the merits of choosing a parenting policy, but also help you address some of the practical challenges you might be facing at the moment. Some of these challenges include lack of social support, unavailability of transportation and not being able to arrange for child care.
Let’s first explore the elements of a good parenting policy and then look at some of the practical tips that would help you in choosing the best program for your children’s upbringing.
Elements of a Good Parenting Policy.
Before choosing the best parenting support program, it is important to do some research and find out the essential elements of a good policy. Here we discuss the necessary aspects of a parenting policy to make the decision easier for you.
The policy must support intervention to parents’ and children’s specific needs.
Every parent is different when it comes to their parenting approach because of their level of education, family background and circumstances. It is therefore important to find a tailored approach to parenting support. Parents with special challenges like disabilities or mental illness like depression are given training to deal with difficult situations.
Practical barriers that prevent the parents from attending the programs must be addressed to support these policies.
These may include problems like unavailability of transport to reach the training site or child care not available. Many parents have mentioned this as their first and foremost problem that becomes a major hindrance in going for a parenting program. The practitioners or providers of parenting policies are taking steps to address this problem.
Evidence-based parenting programs are designed to support the parents in all types of challenges they might face.
This includes providing transportation and arranging for child care to facilitate parents so that they would complete the training and benefit from it. Many providers are moving towards trauma-informed approach when they offer a parenting program to address mental issues from an early age.
Since trauma can have widespread impacts on the child’s social and emotional development, this is an area that needs to be explored in detail. Trauma also serves to affect the relationship between the provider and the parent.
Lack of social support is another challenge that parenting policy providers need to address.
Parents are often discouraged to take part in any such program as it might serve to make them too conservative or too liberal. Many other arguments are also given to go against using a parenting policy to support a child’s social and emotional upbringing.
The best policies have been found to be the ones that provide multi parent or multifamily group format. This facilitates the communication among parents to share their experiences and also receive support from other parents who might be facing common issues. These support groups are particularly useful when the children are having behavioral problems.
What is the Best Parenting Policy for a Child? 20 Important Practical Tips.
One way to make sure every parent in a particular country treats their children in a consistent and proven manner in order to be supportive towards their development is to design parenting programs. The primary goal of these programs is to make the parents more capable of facing the challenges of parenting. These programs help to create outcomes that are beneficial for both the parents and the children.
Here are some practical tips to choose the best parenting policy for your child:
- Make sure you choose a program that provides universal access, which means all parents regardless of their educational background or family history are allowed to take part in a parenting policy.
- Individual parent support is very important to address specific family issues, and the providers must make sure that they deal with the parents on an individual level.
- Good programs also offer medical and child care resources to help working parents so that they can reach at the training sites regularly and without any problem.
- The best parenting policy is the one that offer both relational and participatory helpgiving. These practices have positive effects on the final outcomes of a parenting policy.
- Choose programs that are family oriented rather than based on professional practices to ensure that parents not only benefit from it but also find it enjoyable.
- If a support program is not based on active listening and compassion, it is of no use. The most important skill a helpgiver must possess is to listen actively to the issues of the parents.
- Good policies are designed to involve parents at each and every stage of the program. They are sometimes even involved in decision making and their suggestions are considered meaningful and valuable.
- Parents are engaged to such an extent that their decisions are considered seriously. This is to ensure that they receive proper training to address all the parenting challenges they might be facing.
- The goal of a parenting policy is to support social as well as emotional development of children. You must choose a policy that actually benefits you in this regard.
- A good parenting policy serves to increase the parents’ confidence level and their ability to be better parents when it comes to addressing different aspects of difficult and challenging parenting.
- You need to choose a policy that encourages parents’ interaction with young children. It is important for parents to actively listen to their children’s problems and encourage them to voice their concerns.
- One of the milestones of being a part of such a program is positive child behavior. If your child is improving in his or her behavior and level of confidence and self-esteem, you can be assured that you have chosen an effective parenting support program.
- Good policies monitor the direct and indirect outcomes of helpgiving practices to see if they are being effective. This measurement is important for the success of any policy and if periodic monitoring is not done, the result might be very impressive.
- Since these support programs are primarily designed to offer support to parents, they must be enjoyable for the parents. They will not attend the programs if they don’t find them fruitful or entertaining.
- Participatory helpgiving has been found to be more effective than relational helpgiving mainly because it is based on active listening and compassion. Without these elements, a training program is useless.
- Capacity building practices have an impact on many aspects of parenting in general. It is therefore important to choose a program that is based on capacity building.
- Participants must be satisfied with the helpgiving practices as well as the support provided by the practitioners. There must be arrangements to get feedback from parents periodically so that their level of satisfaction could be judged and improvements could be made.
- Some practitioners find it difficult to engage and retain parents because of lack of experience. The practitioners’ training therefore also plays a major role in attracting parents to these programs.
- A parenting program cannot be successful unless parents are willing to take part in it. They must be informed on how to deal with lack of social or family support, as well as overcome other challenges in the way of effective parenting.
- Parents must be considered equal partners with the providers so that they would become experts in the things their children need.
Keep these points in mind when you are in the process of choosing the best parenting policy. These tips are also helpful in overcoming the challenges that many parents face when they decide to participate in a parenting program or support group.
All parents regardless of their educational background, family history, ethnicity, and finances must be encouraged to take part in parenting policies so that they could benefit from these practices as parents. Moreover, they could make sure that their children receive enough support to overcome their problems and grow up to become good citizens of a country.
Final Thoughts.
Because children are the foundation of any society, it is important to make sure their parents offer complete support and are equipped with the required knowledge and skills to raise responsible, learned and confident individuals. To achieve this, parenting programs are designed that consist of materials and activities that help parents become more competent and skilled for better development of their children.
These policies or programs are community-based parent support, which promotes capacity building. They involve two types of helpgiving practices: relational and participatory. It is important to choose a program that best suits your parenting needs, and this post serves to answer most of the questions in this context.
