Good morning, Good morning! With the weekend behind you once more, we here at Family Builders hope that you spent Saturday and Sunday enjoying your children, spending time with them, and most of all, nurturing them through love and communication. With this nurturing comes the attachment from child to parent that we discussed in last week's blog post in Protective Factor #1. Over the weekend, breaking news in the Metro included a sad child, sexual abuse case that reminds us all that these Protective Factors are indeed important in building a bond with, and protecting your children from the many dangers of the world. As parents, you are the only ones who can create that nurturing bond that leads to trust and love between you and your child. These 6 Protective Factors are SO important!
Today's blog topic covers the second and third factors of the 6 Protective Factors. Protective Factor #2 is: Knowledge of Parenting and Child and Youth Development.
Having a firm grasp on the concept and definition of parenting, as well as the proper tools to implement responsible parenting, will only further the attachment and bond between you and your child. Parenting is not always hugs, smiles, and spoiling. Sometimes, tough parenting and proper discipline comes into play. However, love is always at the root of discipline, and this discipline is most effective and more nurturing when a parent knows how to set and enforce limits, while encouraging appropriate behaviors for that child's age (www.childwelfare.gov). A parent must have a firm grasp on how children and youth develop, learn, and grow in order to properly enforce rules and discipline that encourage children to live up to their potential. However, it should be cautioned that discipline does not mean abuse, and abuse is NOT discipline. Those that believe these concepts are one and the same have an inability to grasp the knowledge of true parenting.
Having a grasp on true parenting means not just learning your child's behavior and how they should be properly developing, but learning to be a coach, mentor, and encourager. Here at Family Builders we provide classes and coaches that can help parents to grasp that true meaning of parenting and teach them the skills necessary to approach parenting armed with knowledge and understanding of their children's development.
Parents who have a true grasp on parenting often display these signs:
-teaching concepts of family morals, values, and family rules
-display behavior management, such as fire-proofing the home, establishing clear family rules, and using choices and consequences
-practice behavior modification through loss of privilege, grounding, expressing parental disappointment in their child's chosen behavior, and time out
-behavior encouragement, such as praise for being and doing good, nurturing touch, privileges, gifts, and allowance to teach money management for older children
-know alternatives to corporal punishment strategies
-teaching children to manage their own behavior
(www.nurturingparenting.com)
Knowledge of the strategies of proper parenting are difficult to come by and often cause stress in a parent's life, but are important to proper family development, structure, and love. This leads us to Protective Factor #3: Parental Resilience
Parents of all demographics, social standing, and nationalities deal with the every day stress of parenting and the occasional family/parenting crisis. Parents must learn to be resilient and they must be able to reach out to the proper resources to receive parental guidance and help, as well as have the ability to "bounce" back to normalcy after adversity hits (www.state.il.us/DCFS).
These parents who are able to become emotionally resilient are better able to obtain a positive attitude, creatively solve problems, address challenges in an effective manner, and are less likely to direct stress, anger, and frustration onto their own children (www.childwelfare.gov).
This resilience however does not come naturally and is often a learned behavior that CAN eventually become a personality trait (www.nurturingparenting.com). Those parents who were first victims of child abuse themselves, may initially have a harder time coming to terms with everyday stresses and learning to bounce back from them effectively. However, as a parent, it is important to learn to be resilient for the sake of your children and your family.
Parents should build a stock house of resources that include information about the causes of stress, as well as the results. They should recognize stress and its triggers, and learn how to cope with it properly. According to www.childwelfare.gove, here are some ways for parents to build resilience:
-develop stress management techniques (regular exercise, relaxing music, praying, etc).
-plan ahead, anticipate possible difficulties, and have a coping plan
-have a proper support system set up (parenting classes, family, friends, faith communities, and community resources)
-develop family management techniques such as effective ways of communicating
-find programs that offer family-to-family help and mentoring
-develop concrete skill building in problem solving, goal setting, communication, and self-care when crisis or stress hit
These two Protective Factors are extremely important in helping to develop a happy, healthy home life, where a true knowledge of parenting exists and is exercised with love and compassion. Family Builders of Oklahoma City cannot only provide you with classes to development this knowledge and stability, but can also teach you as a parent, how to be resilient when stress occurs without resorting to violence or corporal punishment. Here at Family Builders, we want to help you build a loving homelife. For more information, visit our website at www.familybuildersok.org
More information on the 6 Protective Factors can be found at www.nurturingparenting.com
Enjoy your week, and enjoy your children!
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