Authoritative

• Parents are strict and in control.

• Willing to listen to their children’s point of view.

• Able to compromise when necessary.

• Children are brought in warmth environment.

• Children are expected to behave at their intellectual and social age.

Neglecting

• Parent not aware of their children’s whereabouts, activities, friends, or school assignments and environments.

• Parents are bogged down with their own lives and careers.

Indulgent

• Parents are very responsive with their children.

• Place few demands on them (pampering).

Authoritarian

• Parents are strict and uncompromising.

• Exert a lot of demands on their children’s.

• Warmth and two-way communication is rare.

1

Spending time with the child

Improves interactions between parent and child and acts as an opportunity to parents to understand and teach their children

1. Ask permission to join in. (“Can I play with you?”)
2. Show interest by asking them what they are doing.(“What are you doing?”)
3. Find out how the game is played.(“So, how do you play this game?”)
4. When the child has achieved something, acknowledge what they have done.(“Wow, you got the right answer. Fantastic!”)

2

Praise

Praising the child is really important. It shows them what behaviors are good, show them you care and increase their self worth.

Negative statements, on the other hand, are not helpful and often damages the child’s self esteem. They do not learn how to improve themselves. All they get is a fear of making mistakes as well as an authoritarian adults just waiting to scold or hit them when they don’t do something right.

1. Call the child by their name.
2. Make sure you describe what the child did which was good.
3. Say how you felt (i.e. I like what you did; well done; I appreciate it).
4. Give additional attention to their positive behavior by hugging, kissing or patting them for their acceptable behavior.
5. Praise them immediately and consistently for their positive behavior.

3

Rules

In every family there are “do s” and “don’t s”. Thus children need to know what is expected of them and it is thus important that parents tell the children very clearly what behaviors are expected of them. Too often when there is a problem and the children act up, parents get angry and take it out on the child without actually telling the child what is more appropriate behavior.

When child is not behaving in an appropriate manner.

1. Describe the unacceptable behavior.
2. Say what sort of behavior it is (i.e. bad, cruel, rude etc)
3. Describe some other alternative behavior.
4. State the consequences of carrying out the alternate behavior.

E.g.: “Shouting, screaming and yelling is rude and noisy. If you quiten down and say what you want politely, I’ii listen to what you have to say”. “Stay calm and talk in a calm manner. Your child imitates your behavior. When you are fuming, do not scold your child because you may not be able to think calmly and it defeats your intention of wanting to send an important message across”.

4

Ignoring

There will be times when the parents tell the child what behavior is appropriate and the child continue to act up. At this point it is important to realise that all the child wants is more attention, and to be able to not give the child any attention. The technique is call ignoring

1. don’t look in their direction
2. don’t talk to them
3. walk out of the room.

*Parents must realise that the child is trying to test their parent’s patience. Thus it is important to try hard to ignore them until they calm down. When the child calms down, then it is appropriate to ask them what they want. It is crucial for children to realise that only good behavior is going to get them what they want.

5

Children’s decision making

Important to teach children to think for themselves. To achieve this, parents need to guide their children through decision-making process rather than simply giving them the correct answer.

1. Find out what the problem ways that they can solve the problem.
2. Decide on ways are most practical.
3. Where possible rehearse “actually” is.
4. Ask the child if there are going to get are realistic.
5. Try the solution.
6. Discuss what happened with the parent, and if it did not work repeat the same process.

6

Additional skills

Naturally parenting is a life-style and there are many different situations that can emerge.

1. Give your child choices to encourage decision-making e.g. “do you want to eat or ..”
2. Inform ahead of time. e.g. “bed time in 30 minutes.”
3. If you expect your child to comply, give “do” commands, i.e. command with verb at the beginning. e.g. “Put the toys please”. “Walk slowly”. “Speak softly”.
4. Use ” when.then” commands to tell your child consequences of their actions. E.g. “When you finished washing the dishes, you can play with your friends.”
5. Have realistic expectations of what your child can and cannot do.