Ground Rules for Effective Parenting
The place to start is with your basic parenting philosophy—your
overall orientation to the job, which provides the ground rules. Even
though the job changes as the kids get older, effective parents have
two important qualities. They are:
- Warm and friendly on the one hand.
- Demanding and firm on the other.
Being warm and friendly means taking care of kids’ emotional and
physical needs. It means feeding them, keeping them safe, warm, and
well clothed, and making sure they get enough sleep. Warmth and
friendliness also mean being sensitive to the children’s feelings:
sharing their joy over a new friend, comforting them when their ice
cream falls on the ground, listening sympathetically when they’re
angry at their teacher, and enjoying their company.
Being warm and friendly also means liking—not just loving—your
children.
The other important parental trait, being demanding and firm, is
meant in the good sense. Good parents expect something from their
kids. They expect good behavior in school, respect toward adults, hard
work on academics, effort in sports, and relationships with friends
that include sharing and kindness. They expect their children to
follow the rules, to do things for other people, and to sometimes
confront issues that are hard or scary.
In other words, effective parents expect their children to rise to
life’s challenges (as you know, there are plenty!) and to respect the
rules and limits that will be required for their behavior.
These two parental orientations, warm-friendly and demanding-
firm, might at first seem contradictory. They are not. Some situations
call for one, some for the other, and some situations require both. For