How do you influence positive child development? Being a good parent has nothing to do with how much you get done. In fact, it is all about how you help your kids blossom into young adults and beyond.
As early parents, you may downplay your role in your child’s life. However, the effect of a parent who is confident and mentally healthy can impact the relationship a child has with themselves. The upbringing you create can shape them into ethical, happy, and emotionally intelligent adults.
This blog will share seven ways to help build positive child development.
7 Positive Ways To Influence Your Child’s Development
Exhibit Good Behavior
Children do as they see more from what they hear. In short, your behavior at home is closely observed and replicated by children, no matter what you tell them.
It can be a humbling lesson to realize that kids are emotional sponges. This is especially true in their developmental phases where they absorb many tendencies from their parents.
Hence, displaying good behaviors such as sensitivity, empathy, honesty, and integrity can lead to your children developing these too.
Faith Adds To Positive Child Development
One of the greatest gifts parents can give their child is teaching them to have faith.
Faith in a higher power allows children to develop more optimism, emotional security and confidence.
For moms, reading the Daily Devotional for Women will give you many resources to help you on this journey.
These are essentially guides to finding ways to impart your spiritual knowledge in simple ways your children will understand. This can lead to improving and better understanding a relationship with God.
Also, parents can model practices to strengthen faith. Include, praying together and reading parables while having interesting stories associated with them.
Create A Safe Space
If you want your child to share the details of their lives as they grow, they need a safe space in their formative years. We know several older parents who regret not having this.
They talk about how their children do not lean on them to share thoughts, feelings or heavy emotions.
This may occur due to not feeling they have a safe, compassionate and non-judgemental space as a child. It is important that kids feel supported.
You can create small rituals that help your kids to feel they are important. Try talking about your respective days and involving them in certain decision-making processes.
When your family is a cohesive unit, healthy sharing is a by-product of the trust you have in each other.
Problem-Solving Contributes To Positive Child Development
An extension of the safe space you create when you unconditionally listen is helping them solve problems. One of the biggest myths in parenting is that letting kids figure stuff out themselves is the only way they learn.
In fact, stepping in from time to time can lead to confidence and better problem-solving skills. You can help them navigate choices on morals and ethics while developing their “gut instinct”.
This does not take away from the fact that it’s healthy to let children make minor mistakes and learn from them.
However, creating a sense of accountability and helping them understand the nuances of human problems as they grow will define them as adults later.
Teach Them To Love Themselves
As adults, we can struggle to show ourselves the kindness we willingly extend to others. One of the primary lessons that children of all ages need to be taught is to be kind to themselves.
In a highly competitive world, it is easy to get lost in self-criticism and hearsay.
However, parents can help their children build a foundation of self-assurance. This, in turn, will help them direct the kindness they show to others toward themselves as well.
Understanding Emotions
It is essential for child development to find emotional stability. This means understanding the emotions they are going through and recognising why they feel this way.
If kids don’t have a healthy emotional understanding they may react poorly to different situations. Indeed, secondary emotions like rage and anger can turn out to be purely one-dimensional.
Help them uncover the layers of their feelings with various grounding activities and tools.
Introduce New Cultures For Child Development
Since we live in a diverse society, it is essential for future generations to uphold the values of harmony and collaboration.
Understanding different cultures from a place of genuine curiosity will help them develop intellectually as well. That said, it is also vital for positive child development that children value their own traditional culture.
In the long run, it will help them socialize and build meaningful connections with people of all walks, no matter where their life takes them.
Final Word
There are many ways for parents to contribute to positive child development.
By exhibiting the right habits and routines, your kids will become responsible adults with an optimistic outlook in life.
Please use these top tips to form closer bonds with your younglings and develop happy, healthy children.
Stay tuned to our future editorials for more!
Our super author here at Famous Parenting and an absolute wealth of knowledge. She has studied many topics including creative writing, psychology and journalism but her real passion lies in raising her 3 children. Between working from home, homeschooling her youngest 2 children and navigating the world of teenagers she is a guru for parents.
