Positive Parenting and Its Benefits
Today, we know that a child’s education marks their future. Therefore, parents try to ensure that their children have the best possible education in an ever-changing world. However, what’s best for them? What educational style should they choose? Positive parenting provides answers and a clear orientation that guides them toward the goals they’ve set for their children.
Kids don’t come with an instruction manual even though parents often wish they did. Furthermore, the parenting models with which they were raised have probably become obsolete, and challenges are different as well, so they can’t fall back on their memories.
There’s also no sense of community today that allows doubts, fears, and concerns to be expressed and resolved without fear of being judged. Because of this, parenthood can become an uncertain and lonely journey.
If you want to ensure the best development for your children and enjoy harmonious family life, positive parenting may well be the right choice. Below, we briefly describe what it consists of so you can give it a try.
Positive parenting
Positive parenting is defined as a parenting style in which the parent’s behavior is based on the best interests of the child. Thus, the child is recognized as an individual with full rights and the parent aims at protecting, guiding, and promoting their development at all levels. Through affection, security, and guidance, they seek to promote the autonomy of the child so that they can achieve the best results in all the different areas of their life.
This parenting model is extremely different from the authoritarian educational style implemented in previous generations, in which parents expected an obedient and passive attitude from their children. However, it’s not a permissive or negligent model either. Indeed, supervision, boundaries, and well-understood discipline must be present.
The components of positive parenting
To better understand positive parenting, let’s look at some of its basic elements. These are the principles that guide positive parenting :
- Warm affective ties between all members of the family.
- A structured environment that offers appropriate routines and boundaries.
- Appropriate stimulation to enhance the abilities and skills of minors.
- Presence, attention, and shared quality time.
- Recognition of the minor as a person with full rights. Their opinions, interests, and needs are heard and taken into account.
- The enhancement of children’s confidence, self-esteem, and security. This means they feel capable of directing their own lives and influencing their environment.
- An education based on non-violence. In fact, there’s no place for physical or psychological punishment. The inappropriate behavior of minors is corrected through consequences that don’t violate or denigrate them. For example, they’re encouraged to reflect on and repair the damage they’ve caused.
The benefits of positive parenting
Positive parenting benefits, first and foremost, the minors. Indeed, children and adolescents educated along lines that intelligently combine affection, conditions, and the imposition of boundaries grow up feeling protected, loved, accepted, and capable. It’s easier for them to develop good self-esteem and to be able to set intelligent boundaries for others as well.
In addition, the positive exercise of parenting brings benefits to parents. After all, no parent enjoys seeing their home turned into a battlefield, having to chase their children to obey, getting into power struggles with them, or doling out punishments. From the positive approach, healthier and more harmonious family relationships are achieved, conflicts are reduced, and trust is increased. Consequently, the ties between parents and children are strengthened.
Examples of positive parenting
To better understand how this type of parenting occurs in everyday life, here’s a list of examples:
- In the face of any conflict, problem, or decision-making in the family, both parents and children meet to talk and find, together, the most appropriate solution. In this case, everyone is listened to with respect, and every opinion is taken into account. Thus, agreements are reached that favor the whole family.
- Parents get involved in the school life of their children, taking an interest in their educational process and what they’re learning.
- If a child does something considered unacceptable, instead of resorting to physical or psychological punishment, they’re encouraged to repair the damage caused. For example, if they hit a classmate, instead of the parents punishing them with a spanking or leaving them without video games for a week, they teach the child to repair the damage. In this case, it might involve apologizing to the other child.
- Parents dedicate time to activities with their children. This should be quality time and not be interrupted by other people or tasks. The purpose is to carry out an activity that both parents and children enjoy.
Ten tips for fostering positive parenting
Finally, we leave you with a list of tips issued by Save The Children, which allow you to establish positive parenting.
- Children have the right to appropriate care and guidance.
- Education and upbringing must be based on knowing, protecting, and conversing.
- The affective bond is decisive, so it must be promoted and maintained at all times.
- Affection must be shown openly so that children feel loved.
- Rules and boundaries are important, as they give children structure and security.
- Children must actively participate in family decision-making so that they feel responsible, but also listened to and valued.
- Children should be sanctioned when they misbehave, but not punished.
- Slaps, insults, threats, and shouting are neither effective nor adequate in educating children.
- Conflicts must be resolved without resorting to violence
- For children to be well, parents must also be well.
To conclude, we must emphasize that there are as many parenting styles as there are families, despite the fact that the options are generally reduced to a few, based on different parameters. In reality, educational style is created on a daily basis, in the continuous interactions between parents and children. Therefore, it’s up to each individual family to choose the model that best suits their needs.
However, due to the demonstrated benefits of positive parenting, it’s well worth considering for the education of our future generations.
All cited sources were thoroughly reviewed by our team to ensure their quality, reliability, currency, and validity. The bibliography of this article was considered reliable and of academic or scientific accuracy.
- Rodrigo, M., Máiquez, M., & Martín, J., (2010). Parentalidad positiva y políticas locales de apoyo a las familias. Orientaciones para favorecer el ejercicio de las responsabilidades parentales desde las corporaciones locales. Madrid: FEMP. https://www.sanidad.gob.es/ssi/familiasInfancia/docs/folletoParentalidad.pdf
- Capano, Á., & Ubach, A. (2013). Estilos parentales, parentalidad positiva y formación de padres. Ciencias psicológicas, 7(1), 83-95.
- López, S. T., Calvo, J. V. P., Pérez, O. G., & Inda, M. (2019). Evolución de la Parentalidad Positiva: Estudio longitudinal de los efectos de la aplicación de un programa de educación parental. Revista electrónica interuniversitaria de formación del profesorado, 22(3), 109-126.
- Conocer, proteger y dialogar. (2020, 25 febrero). Save the Children. https://www.savethechildren.es/publicaciones/conocer-proteger-y-dialogar
- Leijten , P., Et al. (2019). Meta-Analyses: Key Parenting Program Components for Disruptive Child Behavior. Journal of the American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry. Volume 58, Issue 2, February 2019, Pages 180-190. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0890856718319804
