Children are from heaven positive parenting skills for raising cooperative, confident, and compassionate children Реферат

In this chapter, the author narrates about the five messages of positive parenting which help the children find within themselves the power to meet life’s challenges and develop their full inner potential. Thanks to the book, it is possible to explore a variety of new parenting skills based on communicating each of these five messages.

All children are born innocent and good. In this sense, they are from heaven. Instead of thinking, what should be done to make the children good, parents must recognize that kids are already good. By applying positive parenting skills, parents can learn to support their children’s natural growth process and to avoid interfering.

Besides being born innocent and good, every child comes into this world with his or her own unique problems. There are several the most important roles of the parents described in the chapter. The job of each parent is:

1) to help children face their unique challenges;

2) to help children face and cope with the problems and issues successfully;

3) not to protect children from life’s challenges but to help them successfully overcome them and grow;

4) to support children in special ways so that they become stronger and healthier;

5) to be able to recognize what children’s special needs are and to nurture them.

The author of the book is ready to teach parents new positive parenting skills to assist children in responding to life’s challenges and setbacks, because the child can’t grow up and develop all the skills for successful living without the help of their parents.

To apply the five messages of positive parenting, the author first wants to demonstrate the right conditions for them to work.  These conditions are described in the second chapter. 

New parenting skills will not work when keeping control of children with threats of spanking, punishment, or guilt. It is clear that if parents give up spanking and punishing, they must replace them with something that works effectively to manage children and create cooperation.  

It doesn’t work to treat children as if they are good and innocent, and then spank them for being bad a week later. 

Parents today feel much greater pressure and responsibility to find the best way to bring up their children. Parents make the mistake of focusing too much on providing more: more is not always better. Parents don’t have to give more, instead they need an approach different from their parents’.

That’s why traditional parenting skills and approaches that were appropriate in the past will not work for children today and parents are faced with the challenge of reinventing parenting. Positive parenting is a shift from fear-based to love-based parenting. Positive parenting focuses on new approaches and strategies to motivate children with love and not through the fear of punishment, humiliation or the loss of love; it motivates children to cooperate without using the fear of punishment.

Another problem for positive parenting is violence on TV. There is no doubt that when children are managed by using the threat of violence, punishment or guilt, they will resort to violence, punishment or guilt when they feel out of control as a way to regain control. 

This chapter is dedicated to the new and developed skills that create cooperation with the children. They are:

1) Ask, but don’t order or demand! To create cooperation is to instill in children a willingness to listen and to respond to parents’ requests. The first step is to learn how to direct children most effectively because consistent ordering doesn’t work. The positive parenting alternative skill to ordering, demanding and nagging is asking or requesting.

2) Use “would you” and not “could you”! “Would you” works wonders, while “could you” creates resistance and confusion. Using “would” bypasses much of children’s resistance and invites him to participate. Although it sounds polite to use “could you” to create cooperation, they are ineffective. When parents begin creating greater cooperation by using “would” in a clear and direct manner, they are preparing their children to master the art of asking for what they want and getting it.

3) Give up rhetorical questions! Rhetorical questions are fine when parents are trying to make a point in a persuasive speech, but they are counterproductive when asking for cooperation. For every rhetorical question, there is always an implied message. In parenting, it is usually a negative guilt message that a loving parent wouldn’t want to say directly. By giving up rhetorical questions before making a request, parents increase their chance of creating cooperation, otherwise, children just stops listening. It also prevents children from being exposed to poor communication skills.

4) Be direct! This advice is more important for the women, because they often state what they are displeased about, but don’t follow it with a request. Focusing on what a child did wrong or why a child should feel bad doesn’t help to create cooperation. 

This chapter describes new skills for minimizing resistance by understanding the children.

There are four skills to minimize resistance:

1. Listening and understanding 

2. Preparation and structure 

3. Distraction and direction 

4. Ritual and rhythm 

Positive parenting skills use children’s resistance to strengthen their will to cooperate. Fulfilling certain needs will create an immediate positive response in children depending upon their unique temperament.

The author suggests four different temperaments in children, which sometimes respond better to one approach rather than another. These four temperaments help to identify the child in a general category and then direct the parents to employ one of the four skills for minimizing resistance.

1) Sensitive temperament. Sensitive children need listening and understanding. They are more vulnerable, dramatic and feeling. Sensitive children need empathy and validation of their pain and struggles. Sensitive children need to experience that they are not the only ones who suffer. 

2) Active temperament. Active children need preparation and structure. They are less concerned with their inner responses to life and more interested in having an influence; they are concerned with doing, action and results. Active children always need to know in advance, what the plan is, what the rules are and who the boss is. Active children like to be the center of attention and be where the action is. They always want to be right. Active children need lots of acknowledgment for their successes and forgiveness for their mistakes. They hate to be wrong.

3) Responsive temperament. Responsive children need distraction and direction. They are social and outgoing. Responsive children need time to explore, to experience and to discover life. 

In this chapter, the author narrates how listening and expressing wants can minimize resistance and successfully motivate the children to cooperate.  By learning new skills for improving communication, it is possible to lessen children’s resistance and strengthen their willingness to cooperate.

Positive parenting focuses on ways to awaken children’s willingness to cooperate. Sometimes child’s resistance is just an attempt to communicate, because they don’t feel heard or seen. Taking the time to listen is much more important than getting to soccer practice on time. Cooperation means parents give and children give either. Give the gift of understanding and children will listen better and cooperate more.

To communicate or understand a child’s pressing needs and wants, two conditions must be met. The parent must communicate the validating message, but the child must also be aware of the need to be heard. 

The next step is for the parent to identify their child’s emotion of anger or frustration in a calm and warm way. When a parent acknowledges this emotion, children become aware of what they feel. 

For sensitive children, parents need to focus primarily on drawing out the anger, sadness and fear, while acknowledging that they clearly understand what the child wants. 

For active children, parents need to focus on a few of the primary feelings, but acknowledge what the child is doing or wanting to do.

Responsive children need redirection.

Receptive children need more rhythm.

Each of these four different approaches works best when applied to the appropriate child. Every child has a little bit of each of the temperaments; thus, any of these approaches will work.

J. Gray has been most often asked to write a parenting book. After years of serious thought, workshops and practical applications, John Gray has created a brilliantly original and effective system that he calls positive parenting, for children of all ages, from birth though the teenage years. 

All children are born innocent and good. In this sense, children are from heaven. Every child is already unique and special. They enter this world with their own particular destiny. 

Children don’t need to be motivated by fear of punishment. Instead, they can easily be motivated by reward and the natural, healthy desire to please their parents.

This work covers the different skills of positive parenting to help improve communication, increase cooperation and motivate the children. 

Central to this new approach to parenting are the five positive messages the children need to learn again and again:

- It's okay to be different.

- It's okay to make mistakes.

- It's okay to express negative emotions.

- It's okay to want more.

- It's okay to say no, but remember mom and dad are the bosses.

When these messages are put into practice, the author shows how children will develop the necessary skills for successful living: forgiveness of others and themselves, sharing, delayed gratification, self-esteem, patience, persistence respect for others and themselves, cooperation compassion, confidence and the ability to be happy. With this new approach, parents will be allowing their children to develop fully during each stage of their growth. 

The author’s reassuring message is that children are from heaven and they already have within themselves what they need to grow. Parents’ job is to support that process. By applying the five messages and different skills of positive parenting, the children will receive what they need to become more cooperative, confident and compassionate.