Parenting

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Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. Parenting refers to the activity of raising a child rather than the biological relationship.^[1]

In the case of humans, it is usually done by the biological parents of the child in question,^[2] although governments and society take a role as well. In many cases, orphaned or abandoned children receive parental care from non-parent blood relations. Others may be adopted, raised by foster care, or be placed in an orphanage.

The goals of human parenting are debated. Usually, parental figures provide for a child's physical needs, protect them from harm, and impart in them skills and cultural values until they reach legal adulthood, usually after adolescence. Among non-human species, parenting is usually less lengthy and complicated, though mammals tend to nurture their young extensively. The degree of attention parents invest in their offspring is largely inversely proportional to the number of offspring the average adult in the species produces.

Contents 1 Parental duties 2 Parenting models, tools, philosophies and practices 2.1 Conventional models of parenting 2.2 Modern models of parenting 2.2.1 Parenting For Everyone 2.2.2 Christian parenting 2.2.3 Other modern models of parenting 3 Parenting across the child's lifespan 3.1 Planning and pre-pregnancy 3.2 Pregnancy and prenatal parenting 3.3 Infants 3.4 Toddlerhood 3.5 Child 3.6 Adolescents 3.7 Adults 4 Assistance 5 See also 6 References

[edit] Parental duties

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There is general consensus around parents providing the basic necessities, with increasing interest in children's rights within the home environment.

Need	Parental task
Physical security – the safety of a child's body and life.	• Provide physical safety: shelter, clothes, nourishment  • To protect a child from dangers; physical care  • To care for a child's health
Physical development – appropriate conditions for a healthy growth of a child	• To provide a child with the means to develop physically  • To train the body of a child, to introduce to exercise  • To develop habits of health
Intellectual security – the conditions in which a child's mind can develop	• Provide an atmosphere of peace and justice and respect to one's dignity  • Provide an environment without fear, threat, and abuse
Intellectual development – providing opportunity to a child to learn	• Reading, writing, calculating etc.  • Support and/or provide school related learning  • Teach social skills and etiquette  • Moral and spiritual development. As well as creating an ethics and value systems with social norms that contribute to the child's beliefs, culture; and customs
Emotional security – to help protect a child's psyche	• Provide a safe loving environment  • Give a child a sense of being loved, being needed, welcomed  • Emotional support, encouragement  • Attachment, caressing, hugging, touch, etc.
Emotional development – developing the child's ability to love, care, help, etc.	• Show empathy and compassion to younger and older, weaker and sicker, etc.  • Caring for others, helping grandparents, etc.

Other parental duties can include:

• Financial support: Money provided as child support by custodial or non-custodial parent(s), or the state
• Insurance coverage and payments for education
• Teaching your child to have fun, too, and balance it with life responsibilities.

[edit] Parenting models, tools, philosophies and practices

[edit] Conventional models of parenting

• Rules of traffic models – an instructional approach to upbringing. Parents explain to their children how to behave, assuming that they taught the rules of behavior as they did the rules of traffic. What you try to teach a child doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll get through to them. For example, a teenager was told "a thousand times" that stealing was wrong yet the teen continued to do so. The problem of parenting, in this case, is not that they tried to teach him/her the right thing, but that they considered parenting as a single, narrow minded method of parenting, without fulfilling the range of parental duties.

• Fine gardening model – a model in which parents believe that children have positive and negative qualities, the latter of which parents should "weed out" or "prune" into an appropriate shape. The problem in this parenting method is that parents fight with the faults of their child rather than appreciate their current achievements and/or capabilities; a method which may continue through their whole life without success.

Of these two models, Simon Soloveychik, author of Parenting For Everyone, states:

The models “rules of traffic” and “fine gardening” are especially dangerous because we, following our best motives, constantly quarrel with our children, destroy relationships, and all our parental work becomes a hopeless effort. Moreover, we don’t understand why this has happened. – Simon Soloveychik ^[3]

• Reward and punishment – "RaP" is a model of parenting based on logic: for a good action - a reward/praise and for a bad action - a punishment/scolding/reprimand. To teach a child by this logic is relatively easy and can even be effective, especially if it is done consistently. It is because it forms a sense of justice in a child's mind that it works. But, simultaneously, it imparts the child's universal image of the reward and punishment and when real life doesn't prove to be just it undermines the child's faith in justice, according to Soloveychik. He writes "It is dangerous for the future of children. It may happen that a man, grown up by this model, facing the first serious failure or first trouble, would lift his arms and ask, 'Why me?'"

[edit] Modern models of parenting

Parenting typically utilizes tools of reward and punishment method, but most child development experts now agree that corporal punishment is not an effective behavior modification tool. In 24 countries around the world^[4] corporal punishment (e.g., spanking or whipping) has been prohibited by law. Many parents have adopted non-physical approaches to child discipline, for example time-out. The other "civilized" forms of discipline behavioral control, structure, accountability, Parental supervision, etc.

[edit] Parenting For Everyone

The philosophy of Parenting For Everyone, which stem from the book by the same name, considers parenting from the ethical point of view. It analyses parenting goals, conditions and means of childrearing. It offers to look at a child's internal world (emotions, intelligence and spirit) and derive the sources of parenting success from there. The concept of heart implies the child's sense of being loved and their ability to love others. The concept of intelligence implies the child's morals. And the concept of spirit implies the child's desire to do good actions and avoid bad behavior, avoid encroaching upon anybody's dignity. The core concept of the philosophy of Parenting For Everyone is the concept of dignity, the child's sense of worthiness and justice.

[edit] Christian parenting

In the United States, disparate models explicitly termed "Christian parenting" are popular among some parents who claim to apply biblical principles to parenting. Information on Christian parenting is found in publications, Christian parenting websites, and in seminars devoted to helping parents apply Christian principles to parenting.^{[citation needed]}

While some Christian parenting models are strict and authoritarian,^[which?] others are "grace-based" and share methods advocated in attachment parenting and positive parenting theories. Particularly influential on opposite sides have been James Dobson and his book Dare to Discipline,^[5] and William Sears who has written several parenting books including The Complete Book of Christian Parenting & Child Care and The Discipline Book.

In a study^[6] of Christian parents done by Christian Parenting Today in 2000, 39% of the families surveyed have family devotions once a week or more, and 69% of parents consider Sunday school, youth and children's programs extremely important.

[edit] Other modern models of parenting

Examples of other modern parenting models include:

• Nurturant parent model – A family model where children are expected to explore their surroundings with protection from their parents.

• Strict father model – Places a strong value on discipline as a means to survive and thrive in a harsh world.

• Attachment parenting – Seeks to create strong emotional bonds, avoiding physical punishment and accomplishing discipline through interactions recognizing a child's emotional needs all while focusing on holistic understanding of the child.

• Taking Children Seriously – Sees both praise and punishment as manipulative and harmful to children and advocates other methods to reach agreement with them.

[edit] Parenting across the child's lifespan

[edit] Planning and pre-pregnancy

Family planning decisions about whether and when to become parents, planning, preparing, gathering resources. Reproductive health and preconceptional care affect pregnancy, reproductive success and maternal and child physical and mental health.

[edit] Pregnancy and prenatal parenting

During pregnancy the unborn child is affected by many decisions his or her parents make, particularly choices linked to their lifestyle. The health and diet decisions of the mother can have either a positive or negative impact on the child during prenatal parenting.

Many people believe that parenting begins with birth, but the mother begins raising and nurturing a child well before birth. Scientific evidence indicates that from the fifth month on, the unborn baby is able to hear sound, be aware of motion, and possibly exhibit short-term memory. Several studies (e.g. Kissilevsky et al., 2003) show evidence that the unborn baby can become familiar with his or her parents' voices. Other research indicates that by the seventh month, external schedule cues influence the unborn baby's sleep habits. Based on this evidence, parenting actually begins well before birth.

Depending on how many children the mother carries also determines the amount of care needed during prenatal and post-natal periods.

[edit] Infants

Infant Parenting is where many of the responsibilities of parents begin. They need to attend to their infant's needs by providing special food, to adapt to the infant's erratic sleep cycle and to comfort their child at all times. Additionally, they should love their child constantly and become very sensitive to anything that scares the infant or makes it sad. Mothers should breast feed their infants at this stage if they can, and sufficient exposure to language will be important for the infant when it begins speaking later on.

[edit] Toddlerhood

When the infant becomes a toddler, (generally 1 year after birth) the parents must begin to provide basic training of different types. Of the skills the child learns at this stage, many of them are motor skills and coordination. The child must learn to crawl, sit up, and eventually walk. They must develop their hand-eye coordination from pre-basic levels to higher levels of sophistication. Most speaking ability also develops at this stage, and parents must encourage lingual development by attempting to talk with the child, get them to understand basic gestures and emotional displays, and in most developed countries, eventually teach them to read and write. (This skill overlaps with the next stage of development.)

As the child develops and they learn to speak and move on their own, their curiosity sometimes "drives them like a motor." They will be able to crawl off staircases and swallow dangerous objects all on their own at this point, and parents will have to protect their child by protecting them, and in turn, showing them how some things (swallowing objects, falling off stairs) are dangerous.

[edit] Child

Parents are expected to make important decisions about preschool education and early childhood education. Parents have to love and care for their preschoolers doing all that they can to keep them safe. It is important not to keep things laying around that is dangerous to small children and items that say keep out of reach of children. Children at this age are very likely to put things in their mouths and eat and drink things that are dangerous to their health.

[edit] Adolescents

During adolescence children are beginning to form their identity and are testing and developing the interpersonal and occupational roles that they will assume as adults. Although adolescents look to peers and adults outside of the family for guidance and models for how to behave, parents remain influential in their development. Parents often feel isolated and alone in parenting adolescents^[7], but they should still make efforts to be aware of their adolescents activities, provide guidance, direction, and consultation. Adolescence can be a time of high risk for children, where newfound freedoms can result in decisions that drastically open up or close off life opportunities. Parental issues at this stage of parenting include dealing with "rebellious" teenagers, who didn't know freedom while they were smaller.

[edit] Adults

• Young adults – as children become young adults their personalities show the result of successful or unsuccessful parenting. Especially it is noticeable when young adults make their independent life decisions about their education, work and choosing mates for friendship or marriage.

• Middle age and old age – Parenting doesn't stop when children grow up and age. Parents always remain to be parents for old children. Their relationship continues developing if both parties want to keep it or improve. The parenting issues may include the relationship with grandchildren and stepchildren.

[edit] Assistance

Parents may receive assistance from a variety of individuals and organizations. Employers may offer specific benefits or programs for parents. Another source of assistance is other parents. Using the advice of other parents is sometimes the best advice due to the fact that some have lived through exactly what you are experiencing

[edit] See also

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Parenting

Look up parenting in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

[edit] References

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