Parenting

I can't relate to the experience of parenting on a very concrete level, simply because I haven't become one yet. Still, of all of the things that I've talked about here before, I think that intention is the most important thing of all. When we live our lives intentionally, then that is where we can really begin to do good things. So, while I am not a parent yet, that does not mean that I cannot prepare for it now.

There are various learning curves that we hit in life. When we are born, we are totally immersed in a totally new environment, and we have to learn to do everything that we need to survive. Marriage is another learning curve that requires new skills to be learned; things like communication and working as a team. Raising children is an extension of this, and also comes with a lot of new challenges and learning opportunities. 

Most of us tend to prepare for parenting by thinking about our own parents, and choosing to either replicate or reject their methods. While this can be a good thing to think about to a degree, it is not the very best option for preparing yourself to be a parent. I think that the best option would be to intentionally seek out resources for parenting, and then deciding what we want to incorporate into our families. (And of course, when you are married, this should be done with your spouse).

Dr. Michael Popkin has developed a system of parenting that is referred to as Active Parenting. I really like this approach, because it emphasizes focusing on the child's needs. It can be easy to slip back into our "natural responses" to things, and react to the behavior of a child in a negative way. This isn't abnormal, but in the case of learning to parent, I think it is important to strive to be better than normal. Rather than reacting to our children, Popkin emphasizes applying intentions to our actions, and being pro-active in meeting the needs of our children. 

An interesting observation to examine is that when dealing with raising children, consistency, confidence, and warmth all have an extremely strong impact on the behavior and success of the children. Strictness, on the other hand, has almost little to no bearing on the outcome of the children's behavior. This is interesting to note, because I personally have thought in the past that strictness might be a potentially more impactful factor than it is. As it turns out, a strict regimen is much less effective than setting a consistent and positive example for your children, and giving them generous warmth in your interactions with them.

Children have a need to experiment and learn about their environments in active ways. They want to knock things over and see what happens. This pattern of action and consequence shouldn't be something that we disallow our children to experience. I think it can be natural feeling to want to do things for your child, or to discourage them from getting "hands on" with certain things, but if we do this then we are taking an important experience away from our children.

If we intentionally build an atmosphere of warmth and comfort in the home, then I think this allows the children to feel more comfortable exploring and learning things on their own. They will more likely come to you to ask questions and tell you things, and I think that is something that most parents would value. Rather than discouraging this experimentation, we should allow children to learn the natural consequences to their actions. This doesn't have to be a negative thing at all; it is an important part of their development.  

I think the most important thing to take from this is that we intentionally think about what we are doing now that is affecting how we will parent in the future. It is never too early to establish good habits and traits that will allow us to be better parents in the future.