In this article, we talk about top 5 easy and effective techniques that you as a parent can apply in order to significantly improve your parenting skills and successfully fulfil your desire to do right by your children.

Parenting can be an extremely challenging task. Caring and providing for another human being, and at the same time taking the responsibility of teaching and making him or her understand about life and its affairs can get overwhelming very quickly. However, when done with the right approach and proper guidance, parenting can be easily converted into an exciting quest, filled with memorable experiences.

In today’s world, wherein some of the masses are living unimaginably fast paced lives, some are struggling to make their ends meet, and some are still trying to figure out exactly where their circumstances are headed, maintaining a balance between efficient earning and good parenting has become quite difficult. There are numerous points that we can discuss in this regard, but then this post will become an endless dissertation. Hence, let us cover in brief the most common parenting challenges of all times instead, before we move on to talking about some of the highly effective ways in which you can improve your parenting skills.

Shortage of time: This is unquestionably the most relatable challenge of all. With a rapidly increasing cost of living per capita, the need for creating new and continuously increasing sources of income has gone up as well. Nowadays, relying on just one family member for a consistent flow of income can be considered a risky affair, due to which, a lot of home-makers are being compelled to opt for an active job as a logical alternative. This leaves very little time for the two working parents to provide their young ones with the care and attention that they require.

Inability to bestow good values: Many a time, parents fail to recognize the need for imparting a healthy dose of good moral education to their children. A lot of us also tend to underestimate the learning capabilities of growing children and end up passing our shortcomings and negative propensities as human beings to them. This does not bode well in the longer run and should be tackled as soon as possible to avoid raising impulsive and difficult teenagers. The importance of teaching good values to children at an early stage lies in the fact that it helps to inculcate several important virtues like hope, empathy, patience, mutual respect and altruism in their natural behaviour.

Lack of affection: The way we treat our children largely defines their outlook towards life in general as well as their future relationships. It directly impacts their attachment styles during adulthood. Children who are neglected and reprimanded or chastised for being expressive about their emotions develop an inclination towards being anxious, avoidant and insecure. They find it difficult to trust others when it comes to nurturing secure and healthy relationships. They actually start feeling comfortable in that place of damaged self-worth and re-subject themselves to the same treatment in all their intimate relationships.

Communication gap: We all want what is best for our children. But we lack the sense of judgement for deciding upon how and when to impart our wisdom to them. And so, even though we mean well, we end up doing more damage than good. Effective communication is an extremely indispensable good parenting skill that all of us need to develop without fail.

It’s important to understand that in order to effectively teach your children about making the right decisions in life and working towards creating a better future for themselves, you ought to make sure that you are speaking the same language as them. What this means is this: at times, your children will need to hear the language of love, but you’ll end up shouting and screaming or enforcing strict regulations on them for absolutely no rational reason at all. Other times, they will need to hear the language of truth, but you’ll try and protect them from reality instead. This will seem to have worked in the shorter run, but will eventually show up with dire consequences in the future.

These are the four most common challenges that all parents face at one point or another. In order to do away with these issues in the best way possible, we have provided below a list of top 5 good parenting skills especially curated for the modern era, along with tried and tested ways to cultivate them successfully.

Active Involvement

This is the first good parenting skill that we’re going to talk about. When we say active, we mean enthusiastic and not obsessive. Get to know your children like a friend would, instead of a parent. Get to know their likes and dislikes. Get to know how they respond to the things they are fond of, and to the things they despise. Get to know their passion, and hobbies, their thought processes, and imagination. How do they prefer spending their leisure time? What vision do they have about life? Get them to trust you enough to confide in you about anything and everything. Get them to understand the fact that you’re going to be there for them no matter how bad the situation may be. Get them to understand that you actually care about the little stuff. And no, it does not come naturally to them.

This process is not going to be easy. And you will have to face a lot of resistance initially, both from your children as well as yourself. But if you really wish to improve your parenting skills, you will have to make certain sacrifices, and rearrange how you view your priorities. You will also have to make peace with the fact that your children will not act according to your will every time, and might end up screwing things up, but you’re going to have to be there for them nevertheless. The rule of thumb here is to act like a friend when it comes to getting to know your children. If you’ll respond aggressively to their trust, they’ll stop confiding altogether. You will have to create a safe space for them wherein they can freely share even the most menial of details about their lives without experiencing the fear of getting a negative reaction from you.

Another thing to keep in mind is that active involvement does not indicate a mere mental presence. You will have to be physically present for your children in their times of need. You will have to give up on your own recreational hobbies and devote as much time as you can to your children and their interests. One way to tackle this would be to organize frequent family activities. You could plan family outings, picnics, adventure trips, etc. if you sense that your children have a more extroverted personality and like to participate in such activities, or you could arrange for spending a good amount of time on indoor hobbies, art sessions, board games, etc. instead if you sense that your children have a bit more mellow taste or an introverted personality and like to indulge in activities that challenge the mind instead of the body.

Continuing with the concept and importance of physical presence, make time for participating in events that are important to your children such as parent-teacher meetings, school/college functions, award ceremonies, graduation ceremonies, career counselling seminars, etc. All of these are emotionally triggering and life shaping events and our experiences on such occasions tend to stay with us for all of eternity. So if your children find you to be standing next to them at their life’s turning moments, it will automatically send a message to their subconscious mind that they can count on you to be there for them whenever they’ll need you to. Conversely, if they find you to be absent, irrespective of the reason behind your absence, they will continue to see you in a similar light for years to come.

When you’ll consistently practice getting actively involved in your children’s life, you’ll immediately see a positive change in their behavior. You’ll find them to be much more open to you regarding their emotions. You’ll also find them to be much more open to your suggestions and wisdom. They’ll see you as being understanding and this will inevitably become evident from the way they share their thoughts and feelings with you. One noteworthy advantage of active involvement is that at the very least, you’ll be aware of what exactly goes on in your children’s life.

Most of the times, children tend to hide their ordeals from their parents and tend to deal with them on their own. Sometimes this works, sometimes this worsens the situation and children end up hurting themselves in the process. This should be a big cause for worry for you if you really wish to do right by your young ones. The best solution for this would be to focus your effort towards getting to know the entire picture first, i.e. active involvement. What you do with the information you collect and how you react to it is just as crucial, but more on this later. The very first step is to create a bond so strong with your children that they get into the habit of sharing their ups and downs with you, and trust you to guide them properly and effectively. Everything else becomes secondary.

Bottom line is this: try your best to be actively involved (like a friend) in your children’s life both mentally as well as physically, and consult the guidelines mentioned above as and when the need arises. Read on to know more about other important ways to improve your parenting skills.

Control your reactions

Controlling your reactions is yet another imperative good parenting skill that you must equip yourself with. And this goes in conjunction with active involvement. As mentioned earlier, the fact is that your children will not act according to your will every time. There will be moments in which they will take decisions based on their own judgment. Yes, it may end up hurting them instead of helping them. But there is only so much you can control. At times your children will tell you things you will not agree with. They may indulge in practices you don’t approve of. Conflict between parents and children, like in all other relationships, is quite inevitable. How you manage that conflict makes all the difference in the world.

We strongly suggest you get into the habit of responding instead of reacting when it comes to handling conversations with your children. Make it a practice to not react under the influence of the very first emotion you experience when facing a difficult situation related to them. Instead, try to absorb as much information as you can and then let the primary wave of emotions pass before you ‘respond’ to the information collected. Constantly remind yourself that when it comes to your children, you will always listen to understand and neither to guide nor to react. If you really wish to help your children see the difference between good and bad, or hurtful and helpful, you will have to view the picture through their lens first. You will have to understand their perspective before you can bring about a change in it. It’s as simple as that.

One of the major benefits of controlling your reactions is that you get the time to analyze and assess the entire scenario before you express your own thoughts on it. You become the person in charge of directing the situation instead of being directed by it. You become the one in control instead of the one being controlled. This in turn prevents you from causing unanticipated and irreversible damage to how your children view your persona in the longer run. When we act on an impulse, we send out a message that we aren’t in control of our emotions, have a tendency to act out, and can easily be influenced by trivial triggers. Children are very good at picking up such messages.

You act aggressively the first time, and they may get startled and baffled as to what just happened. They may even think that they did something extremely wrong and feel guilty about hurting your emotions. But then they witness the same behavior a second time, even when the situation wasn’t that bad. And then a third and a fourth time. Now, they begin forming a perception. From then on, every time you act out, you bolster their belief that it is in your nature to act aggressively even to the smallest of triggers. And no matter how wise your words may be, as long as they are spoken in aggression, they will always fall on deaf ears. No advice coming from a person driven by instincts rather than rationale can ever be taken seriously. That’s just how we have all been coded and built.

The best approach in this case would be to take a moment, and think about all the better ways to handle the difficult situation in question. Maybe you could inquire your children about their take on the matter at hand. Or maybe you could ask a few follow up questions to get a better look at the entire picture. Or maybe you could share your own experience of a similar situation and then ask them what did they make of it. The idea is to challenge their cognition and decision making skills and not spoon feed them theoretical concepts of wisdom. And whatever you do, make it a point to resist all forms of anger and aggression for as long as you can. Refrain from shouting, screaming, taunting, and mocking. Refrain from making comments that are bound to hurt their sense of self worth.

Also, this practice must not stay limited to how you behave with your children, rather how you behave in front of them. You don’t want to give them the idea that you have two different personalities, one for them and one for everyone but them, because that will end up creating a whole new mess of its own. In general, just be aware of what mental image you send of yourself to your children. Be aware of how you treat other people in front of them, how you behave in challenging situations, how you handle stress, etc. How they view you as a person has a direct impact on how they view your guidance and suggestions. Strive to develop the habit of keeping your reactions in check in front of your children, and everything else related to them will fall in place sooner or later.

In short, your goal as a teacher of right and wrong should be to guide their thought processes and rationale and not their actions. Actions are a manifestation of thoughts and emotions. You learn to direct their thoughts through helpful channels, you automatically gain control over their actions. You don’t have to get all worked up just to impose your own thoughts and beliefs on them. Maintain your cool, and work your way around your children’s ignorance in the most patient way possible. All in all, controlling your reactions is an extremely important step towards improving your parenting skills.

Learn the languages

This is the third good parenting skill that needs to be discussed in great depth. Once you master controlling your reactions in front of your children, the next step would be to learn when to use the language of love, when to use the language of truth, and when to use the language of discipline. Equipping yourself with the knowledge of using the right language in the right situation at the right time will help you impart helpful suggestions to your children effectively. This will further improve your parenting skills drastically, and will help you communicate with your children in a much more efficient manner.

The Language of Love

The language of love is the one you should be using 80% of the time with your children. Everything that can be conveyed in a loving manner should be conveyed in a loving manner. Your children are delicate creatures with fragile minds who respond much more positively to love as compared to anger. From an early age, children learn to pick up the kind of language you use to respond to their needs, desires, and actions. They make associations between your reactions and their own actions and behavior, and this in turn leads to the formation of corresponding perspectives, instincts and beliefs.

How they view you and your behavior towards them shapes the kind of relationship they will go on to have with you as well as with others in the future. Why? Because as a parent, you will always be the one with whom they’ll form their very first close intimate relationship. You will be their first responders for a long long time. And the fact that they used to be a part of you before taking birth as separate individuals will always make them save a special place for you in their hearts. So if you behave lovingly with them, if you show them how accepting you are of their flaws and weaknesses, it will automatically lead them to developing a loving and accepting outlook towards relationships in general. This is an exceedingly effective parenting skill to learn.

Conversely, if you get into the habit of chastising them over petty issues, if you physically hurt them over non-essential mistakes, if you tend to lose your temper over meaningless discussions or arguments, it will undoubtedly have a negative impact on the kind of relationships they end up forming with you as well as with others in the later years of their lives. This is why controlling your reactions in front of your children becomes extremely important if you wish to inculcate good parenting skills.

If your children make a mistake, instead of shouting or screaming at them, sit them down and politely talk to them about what they did wrong. More often than not, children are completely oblivious to the fact that their actions were wrong or hurtful. As parents, it is imperative to understand that your children do not screw up on purpose. It’s just that they don’t know any better. Also, as parents, it is your responsibility to teach them about the difference between hurtful and helpful actions. Now, you can choose to do it with love or with aggression. The impact, consequences and side-effects of your suggestions will inevitably match the kind of language you use to convey them to your children.

Similarly, if your children tell you something you don’t like or approve of, don’t react to that information aggressively. Switch to the language of love, and tell them where they went wrong, or how they can opt for a better approach that will be beneficial to them. Some of the key virtues that can help you successfully learn to use the language of love include patience, empathy, and mutual respect. Work on inculcating these as well since it will aid you in getting to know your children better as individual human beings.

The Language of Truth

The language of truth is yet another language that parents need to learn in order to equip themselves with good parenting skills. A lot of the times, parents believe that hiding the truth will keep their children safe and secure from lingering dangers. They even go to the lengths of narrating false stories to their young ones, thinking that it will protect them somehow.

What parents really need to do is develop a sense of how and when to tell their children the truth and that too in a mature manner. Unfortunately, there is no black and white answer to this problem. The solution largely lies in a bit of a grey area wherein parents need to get into the practice of relying on their own experience, judgment and wisdom so as to ascertain the extent and the means of divulging the truth as and when required. One rule of thumb for this would be to refrain from lying as much as possible. Just stick to telling the truth, even if it is the partial truth. Especially when it comes to teaching them about life and its affairs.

The first step is to decide whether the truth in question is a helpful or a hurtful one. You need to establish whether or not the truth you’re about to tell or hide from your children holds any level of significance or value for them. Can it prove to be a teachable moment for them? Will it give them the experience they need in order to become self-independent individuals? Or will it do them no good and only hurt them instead? Is the truth relevant to their day-to-day activities? Will hiding the truth prove to be harmful in the longer run? Will hiding the truth distort their perception of reality in the years to come? Ask these questions before you decide upon telling or hiding an important truth from your children.

The next step would be to determine if your children are mature enough to handle the truth. Every child has his own mental capacity to comprehend and make sense of life’s complexities. There is no ‘one size fits all’ approach that can be adopted here. As parents, you will have to gauge and ascertain the level of understanding and cognition that your children have attained, and what would be the best way to divulge sensitive information to them at the moment, all factors considered. Can you be absolutely but politely blunt with them? Or will you have to sugar-coat and polish a few thoughts before expressing? How will your children react afterwards? How can this affect your relationship with them? What guidelines will you have to give them so that they can best utilize the information you are going to provide them with?

Depending upon the severity of the truth, you will have to play a few pre-runs in your mind regarding all possible reactions that your children might give after receiving that truth. Based on these pre-runs, you will also have to devise certain strategies to tackle those reactions. Our advise here would be to strictly stick to the language of love for all communications that follow the great revelation. The pre-runs are there to get you prepared for a potentially upcoming difficult situation.

Once you’ve established that your children are mature enough to understand and process the truth, the last step would be to determine the most effective mode of delivery. After having spent years with your children, it becomes quite evident as to how they consume and utilize useful information. Use this knowledge to your advantage and try to ascertain the best possible approach for divulging the truth to your children.

May be they learn best when spoken to in a polite and loving manner. May be they are visual learners and enjoy looking at pictures and movies. May be they learn better by gaining first-hand experience and are open to valuable insights, suggestions and guidance because they believe in the ‘do it right the first time’ policy. Or may be they are more inclined towards the fall-and-learn approach instead. The point is to impart the knowledge you wish to give in a manner which is in sync with their receptiveness pattern. Always remember, it isn’t what you say, but how you say it that determines the outcome of a conversation in most cases.

The Language of Discipline

The language of discipline is just as important as the language of love. But it should always be used in conjunction with a detached relationship with the situation. What it means is this: imagine your children make a mistake, and a grave one at that. Using the language of discipline has become of utmost importance in this case. You must take some form of strict action so that your children do not repeat whatever it is that they did in the future. But before you proceed any further, ask your yourself: what is your intention here? Do you wish to make your children aware about what they did wrong, or do you wish to hurt them because they hurt you first? We are sure it must be the former.

The point is to understand your intention and take action accordingly. All your subsequent actions must be centered around fulfilling this one intention alone, and anything that can take you a step back must be avoided at all costs. You’ll be able to take much better decisions when you aren’t emotionally invested in the situation. This is a fact. The moment you allow your emotions to guide your actions instead of your cognition, you are bound to either behave a little too strict or a little too weak-hearted. This will definitely hinder you from fulfilling your intention of teaching a valuable lesson to your children when the need will be most crucial. Learning to use the language of discipline is a must if you look forward to developing good parenting skills.

Our advice? As mentioned before, take a moment to let the first impulsive wave of emotions pass before you issue a ‘grounded for a month’ sentence to your children. Every problem calls for a different and innovative solution. And our goal isn’t to punish, but to make them understand. So, yet again, you’re going to have to rely on your own sense of judgement and come up with an innovative way of disciplining your children. Yes, the solution can be a little painful, because pain is a good teacher, but just to the right degree. Focus: it has to fulfill your main intention. That’s all you have to keep in mind before taking any decision in this regard.

If you’re someone who finds it difficult to behave tough with your children, you need to make peace with the fact that using the language of discipline is for their own good. Conversely, if you’re someone who tends to cross the line and acts excessively strict and stubborn, you need to realize that if you continue to behave this way, you will end up driving your children away. Maintaining a healthy balance between the two approaches becomes key here. And this is why you should spend a considerable amount of time in learning the language of discipline before you cause some irreversible damage to your relationship with your children.

When explaining the consequences of their hurtful actions, be firm but gentle. Establish a ‘no-nonsense and matter-of-fact’ policy and make sure both you and your children adhere to the same. Do not use taunts, unnecessary slangs or mean phrases with your children in order to prove a point. It’s disrespectful. Pay homage to their sense of self-worth and individuality. Always choose mature punishments that serve a purpose over irrational retribution. Also, let your children’s cognitive development decide the kind of penalty they receive for their wrongful deeds. Be consistent with your languages and avoid displaying impulsive behaviors and random mood swings. Maintain your calm as much as possible and show them you are in control of the situation irrespective of the language you’re using. Finally, learn to let go of non-essential conflicts. This will go a long way in revamping your parenting skills.

Foster a positive environment

Fostering a positive environment is the fourth critical good parenting skill and can be done in two simple ways. One is to balance punishment with reward and the other is to allow your children to freely express their deepest of emotions without judgement. Inculcating these two attributes into the dynamics of your parent-children relationship will swiftly enhance your parenting skills. Let’s talk about them in detail.

Balance punishment with reward

It is easy to lecture your children about all the things they do wrong. It is convenient to teach them lesson after lesson every time they make a mistake and neglect their positives and their achievements or chastise them when they display intense emotions. This is how most parents end up ruining their relationships with their young ones. Nobody fancies constant criticism. And it becomes especially unbearable when it comes from someone you wish to idolize and seek meaningful guidance from, but are left with nothing but relentless scolding and a damaged sense of self-worth. After all, good parenting skills aren’t just about lectures and punishments.

This is where the concept of balancing punishment with reward comes in. It’s important to let your children know about the consequences of their wrongful deeds. But it’s just as important to be appreciative of their success and achievements. Every time your children put in a conscious effort towards becoming better human beings, you need to reward them in one way or the other. Incentivizing an act naturally let’s them know that it’s the right thing to do. It can be as trivial as telling them how proud they make you feel. Or you could grant them permission to go for that night stay as reward for studying hard all day week and scoring an ‘A’ in their class test. You see, ultimately it is the little things that matter the most.

Rewarding you children for positive behaviours can help reinforce the same, thereby leading to repetition and natural cultivation. It can prove to be extremely encouraging and can significantly improve their self-esteem. If you keep telling your children what not to do, they will grow up to be cautious individuals. But sooner or later, it will take a toll on their morale and confidence. They might even develop this idea that they can’t really do anything the way it is supposed to happen. And on top of it all, they will never actually learn to take initiative and move forward towards fulfilling their dreams. They will always tend to stay on their back-foot, and play defense, and remain afraid of making mistakes.

Words of praise can work wonders as rewards. It may be an intangible form of reward, but never underestimate the power of a well-presented phrase of praise to an aspiring human being who longs to get into your good books and does not shy away from working relentlessly to make you proud. Sure, acting tough and ‘difficult to impress’ can force them to push their limits, but not always. Sometimes, it can break their motivation. Sometimes, acknowledging their strengths, efforts, and hard work can do more good than you may imagine. Like we said before, nobody likes constant criticism.

Another interesting way of presenting rewards would be to create conditional compensations and penalties. If your children fulfill a promise, they receive something they yearn in return. If they don’t, they lose something they could have earned instead. It’s a simple if-else scenario deal. Either way, you get to strengthen your bond with your children while teaching them important lessons as per your own will. This way, your children will not only learn to work for their desires and goals, but will also get acquainted with the bitter taste of failure. It will help them get accustomed to the reality of life as they grasp how to make peace with the fact that there will always be situations they cannot control and things they cannot acquire.

Lastly, never hesitate to show affection to your children in the form of physical touch. You’re a loving and caring parent who ought to indulge more in hugs, high-fives, fist-bumps and forehead kisses with your young ones if you aren’t already.

Free Expression

Creating an emotion friendly environment wherein your children can freely express their deepest of emotions is one of the most important good parenting skills that you can develop. The disadvantages of having suppressed emotions are virtually infinite. From having a completely unpredictable state of mind to experiencing severe anxiety and trust issues, unchanneled emotions tend to negatively affect almost all aspects of our lives. You don’t want to bestow this curse upon your children if you truly wish to do right by them.

In order to create an emotion friendly environment, the very first step is to ensure that you never ever scold your children for displaying emotions like sadness, pain, guilt, worry, remorse, nervousness, anxiety, fear, etc. As adults, you need to acknowledge the fact that all of these emotions are a crucial part of who we are as a species. And no matter what we do, we will not be able to get rid of them. Truth be told, our negative emotions are just as important as our positive ones. They have their own stories to tell. If only we knew how to listen. But that’s a topic for some other day. For now, focus on improving your own threshold for tolerating sudden displays of unpredictable emotions expressed by your children. Only then will you be able to help them deal with the latter maturely.

On many occasions, your children might not even be able to communicate their feelings in a manner that you would comprehend. And it should not be made into a big deal because it’s the same story for most adults as well. Not all of us are skilled at tackling our negative emotions effectively. Sometimes, we don’t even recognize ourselves when we look back and analyze our behaviour in certain challenging situations. Again, it’s extremely important that we start empathizing with our children before setting irrational expectations of them. If we as adults have such great difficulty in understanding, untangling, and maturely expressing our negative emotions, how can we expect young individuals to do the same without providing them with the required guidance, help and clarity?

As parents, you are responsible for teaching your children about mature expression of complex emotions. In order to to this, you need to make them realize that they won’t have to fight to make you understand how they feel. That’s where you should begin. You need to gain their trust that you will not only respect their emotions, but also not misuse that knowledge against them in arguments no matter how bad the situation may be. This will enable your children to get comfortable with their deepest and most intense of emotions. It will also enable you to take your parenting skills on a whole new level. Once they reach that milestone, they will never have to struggle with expressing themselves in a healthy and constructive manner. Again, just to reiterate, how we guide our children at the onset of their emotional journey today directly affects how they move through it on their own tomorrow.

In psychology, there is a concept called the “attachment theory” which largely states that an infant’s relationship with his or her primary caregiver has a deep and lasting effect on the former’s future relationships with those around when he or she grows up to be a teenager and subsequently an adult. This is precisely what we’ve been trying to tell you all along!

If as adults, you find yourself to have anxiety issues when it comes to dealing with relationships, or you find it difficult to express yourself freely and instead tend to keep your emotions to yourself, or even go to the lengths of deliberately distancing yourself from those you love, you should probably introspect upon the kind of relationship you had with your primary caregiver. And since you’ve experienced how it feels on a first-hand basis, we sincerely hope that you’ll strive hard to keep your children from feeling the same way.

Impart good moral education

Last, but most definitely not the least, this is the fifth good parenting skill that we’re going to talk about. Moral education is an all-time underrated subject of discussion but probably has the greatest impact on how we are shaped as responsible individuals. Strong moral values essentially enable a person to differentiate between right and wrong. It intrinsically refers to the creation of and adherence to a set of guidelines and principles that separate the righteous from the unscrupulous. A person well laced with ethics will do his or her best to not wrong those around. Good ethics make for better individuals who tend to drive the society towards a just and brighter future. But it takes a lot of effort and patience to produce such beings. The accountability of imparting good moral education on the upcoming youth naturally lies with their parents before anyone else.

Everyday, we hear of numerous atrocities being carried out around the world. We hear of people hurting people for absolutely no reason at all. Rape and murder have become such common crimes in our society that many of us barely even flinch on finding out about them. We sincerely believe that moral education can very well be the one-stop-solution that we’ve all been looking for. Which is why it becomes of utmost importance that parents put in their best foot forward in teaching this subject to their young ones. If you aren’t convinced about incorporating any of the previously mentioned parenting skills in this article, at least give this particular skill a fair shot before ruling it out.

The very first step here would be to lead by example and set certain guidelines and principles for yourself that you follow religiously come what may. Your children will inevitably observe and learn from you when you stick to doing the right thing even when no one’s watching. Everything that you wish to teach your children, you must practice and display proactively first. Only then will your children show the enthusiasm to learn from you. If you act hypocritical, they will undoubtedly understand that you don’t mean what you say. Eventually, you will end up losing their trust and goodwill.

Next, do not hesitate to have the “talk” with them. Get accustomed to discussing sensitive topics with your children that you know will have a direct impact on their day-to-day lives sooner or later. You need to start treating your children like mature beings. Practice holding meaningful sessions with them in which you get to know about their take on moral values and ethics. Ask them what they would do if they found themselves to be in situations that would demand some display of ethical behaviour from them. For ex. what would they do if they saw a boy in their class getting bullied in the hallway? How would they react if they witnessed their friends throwing racial slurs at somebody who cannot defend herself? Would they stand up for what’s right? Or would they give in to peer pressure?

You can try developing activities or organizing role play sessions if you think it’ll help pass on the information in a fun and much more engaging manner. There are several courses and programs that you can enrol your children in so as to give them access to professional guidance and help for inculcating good ethical values. If your children have an inclination towards reading, you can provide them with books and literature related to moral education. Every now and then, we have movies produced with strong underlying messages which too can prove to be quite an efficient way of imparting crucial knowledge on the subject.

There is a plethora of good quality content related to ethics and moral values just lying around, waiting for responsible parents to pick it up and hand it over to their young ones. There are songs, poetries, comics, articles, short-stories, novels, documentaries, cartoon programs, tv-series, movies, and whatnot. All you need is a vigilant eye and the will to put in a little effort towards focusing on this aspect of your children’s growth process.

Finally, you may share your own past experiences and mistakes so that they don’t repeat them in their own journey towards becoming better human beings. Conversing with them as a friend and not from a place of authority will also help make the process a bit more comfortable. It will enable them to absorb the information being provided rapidly and properly. Follow these simple yet effective guidelines to improve your parenting skills, and we are certain your children will grow up to be strong confident individuals.

Conclusion

As a parent, it is your responsibility to create the best possible environment filled with continuous learning and growth opportunities for your children. They ought to feel safe with you physically, mentally as well as emotionally. Sure, you may not agree with all of their thought processes and decisions, but you’ve still got to respect them. There is only so much you can control or impose. Your children have a separate individuality and you have been made accountable for shaping it for the better.

If you diligently use the above mentioned techniques and incorporate the same in your daily interactions with your children, you will unquestionably improve your parenting skills in no time at all. A little consistency and patience is all you need, and one day, you will stand tall and proud of the personage you helped build over the years.

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Impart good moral education

Finis – The End