Parenting Styles – What Kind of Parent are you?
What kind of parent are you? [Take our quiz here]
What drives you to communicate, discipline and show affection to your child, the way that you do?
We explored the nuances of parenting in this podcast; and discussed four key aspects of parenting - affection and responsiveness, discipline, parent practices and communication.
#1 Affection and Responsiveness
How do you show affection to your child?
Do you acknowledge your child’s wants and wishes?
We talked about the importance of 孝, filial piety, in Asian cultures – where one respects and obeys one’s elders without question; and how this philosophy affects parenting. Modern parents are increasingly becoming aware of the lifelong benefits of breaking down decisions and consequences with their children, rather than adopting a “blind obedience” approach. At the same time, we find it important to cultivate respect for their elders.
We then delved into the science behind tantrums – why do our children have such strong and extreme emotional outbursts? What role can parents and caregivers play, to help them manage these outbursts?
#2 Discipline
Discipline can be one of the greatest stressors in a parent-child relationship, but can it also be a positive parent-child experience?
We talked about the science behind parent-child interactions; and how a child instinctively reacts and learns from parental cues, as well as the long-lasting impacts from these early childhood experiences, which can extend into adolescence and adulthood.
Our experts at mumsclub have created a step-by-step guide to help parents navigate through and understand the most effective and positive discipline strategies. We talked about reframing our perspective towards proactive, rather than reactive, discipline.
#3 Parent Practices
Parent practices are concepts and actions that are consistently emphasised to their children. We shared parent practices that we practised with our own children.
We then also discussed the need to help our children differentiate between “ideal” behaviours or concepts that we practice in the home; and the fact that the real world out there might operate quite differently.
What parent practices do you practice at home? Share with us, or read about other parents’ experiences on our Facebook Group.
#4 Communication
We talked about the joy and horror of seeing your child mimic adult behaviours; and how quickly they pick up multiple nuances of communication, such as body language, tone and eye contact.
We also discussed key scientific findings on early childhood literacy and how we can provide a language-rich environment for our children.
Another aspect we discussed was the pros and cons of repetition – while repetition and routine may enable a child to pick up simple words quickly, it also reduces the diversity of vocabulary that the child is exposed to.
We then discussed the different methods to communicate with your child to stimulate their observation, thinking and communicating skills. Read more on our guide here.
At the end of the day – no parenting style is perfect or all encompassing. After all, we are only human; and there may be external stressors or factors that contribute to how we parent.
Look forward to our next podcast on Parenting in a Pandemic - experts around the world believe that Covid-19 won’t be the last. What did you learn from your circuit breaker experience? What are the common signs of anxiety expressed by children? How can we preserve our mental health? All these and more, on the next episode of Mummy Matters.