Every student is a child also. And every childs is parented also. Being an education organisation we are concerned with every child and hence every student. Hence we remain concerned about the quality of parenting. We believe a better and positive parenting can bring out the best in every child, every student. Hence we endeavour to help parents to be even better parents through our educational participation. This blog and all other such blogs are reflections of such endeavours from our end.
The glass is half full or half empty?
The journey of positive parenting essentially and subtly starts from something like this question. About how they would find a half-full glass or a half-empty glass in their child.
No child is ever born with a full glass. Most will be with a lot of empty places to be filled by something(s) worthy or may be not so worthy. It depends mostly on the environments and of which parents are one of the crucial members.
Positive parents will easily find and see the half full or even partially full glass and try to build their child on that, adding a few more valuable drops to fill some of the empty spaces.
Let’s take those lines……”You are loved, you are good, you matter.” This is indirectly saying what we can understand as affirmation of the half glass full. Love comes from appreciation, and appreciation comes from finding that half full glass.
With growing age we make that glass fuller or emptier. Or perhaps wrongly filled. And in all of that, the role of parents plays a very important and undeniable role. A child’s growth is like well orchestrated music, with many instruments playing with respective harmonised roles, and if that fails then the music can turn into noise.
Let us now go to the first line. We have to understand the meaning and significance of “showing” love. Having love and showing love may seem so inherently the same but they are two different things, though inter-related, as interrelated as having the guitar and playing the guitar. Thus just having the guitar does not make much sense unless it is played and played well,
Hence showing care and love is an important matter for the child. Already they are just at the nascent stage of human communications, and hence their understandings are not much wide or deep. They will understand something that is very much in front of them. Hence parents need to put extra effort to show that they do love and care.
Many parents think that being negative or pessimistic or critical will bring out the best from their child. In reality nothing can be wrong than this. Sometimes we can see some apparent or superficial effects, but in the long run and holistically that only enhances latent hostility and unhealthy competitive behaviours in the children. And that happens almost unknowingly to them.
Appreciation encourages confidence. And appreciation comes from positivity. If parents cannot maintain themselves enough positive about their child then true appreciations are not possible to emanate from their words and works.
When a child is too much a child, he knows no language. Still he communicates with his mother, his father, family members and even surroundings. That thing we need to remember throughout our life. We forget those days as we grow up. One who is a parent on this day was such an infant someday. And he or she had no words to speak or to hear.
Thus we need to understand that words are just a part of our whole communication. And often communications are done more by other ways than just words. And the whole of these constitute what is called body languages. For a child body language matters a lot. He understands body language better than conscious words.
Hence the conscious and subconscious position of the parents towards the child has to be positive in order to create a positive, nourishing and growing environment for the child. And not just it has to have but also it has to be shown by the parents as well.
Now as to focus on our specific topic, we know that every child is also a student, at home and in school (if he or she is at schooling age). Thus every positive parenting endeavour almost automatically and spontaneously converts in studentship benefits within the same child.
“Parents often think their main role is to discipline their children so they learn to be good. As a positive parent, that perspective shifts to the belief that children are good, and yet they also need guidance while their ability to navigate their emotions and brains slowly mature”.
“The original meaning of the word discipline comes from the Latin “disciplina,” meaning “teaching, learning” and is related to the word disciple. To discipline then is to teach — this is the role of a positive parent.”
Get Started with Positive Parenting Today: 10 Tips From a Developmental Psychologist
nurtureandthriveblog.com
This establishes the role positive parents can play in the learning process of their child.
This is a very diverse era, with a major impact of digital devices and media on every child and student. Thus the role of modern parents has to transform a lot more than that used to be even a couple of decades ago. One cannot exclude the digital platforms from almost every aspect of human life, then the only way to make it inclusive, but intelligently and responsibly.
The new age with newer technologies and social structures, many new things are arising, many issues on self-respect, identity, health and overall wellbeing of the child student become much more vulnerable. And to deal with all these, both patient and knowledgeable parents are more in need than ever before perhaps.
The need for positive care and participation in all the learning and developing phases of the child has been increased to almost a critical level. Failing in what may become a potential cause of many somatic as well as even more psycho-somatic issues in the child. The holistic wellbeing of the child may easily get challenged and vulnerable.
These problems and many more can come down to a minimal level, or sometimes negligible, by actively positive parenting. The parenting time invested can be divided into 2 essential categories, quality time and quantity time.
Many will ignore the importance of quantity time by quoting the value and importance of quality time. And that often touches levels of deprivation. Deprived of quantity time and only some quality time may be used to work somehow in the past, but now it is not going to work anyway.
For a child, the role of quantity time and quality time both has been important throughout. Parents need to provide the both, for better and holistic learning and development of the child.
The notion of quality time includes the issue of positive parenting. Only with a positive mindset and views, a parent can impart positive parenting. And that has to be continued and extended, thus the notion of quantity of time gets relevant.
Thus the child would need not little but enough or even much more high quality positive parenting time. And the more he or she gets, better the chances of good learning and of them becoming a positive student.
Afterall we can remember Newton’s famous quote that every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Though that was for physical bodies, but often that gets relevant in interactions between a child and parents. If the parents can embed goodness and positivity in the child then we get positive students.