The Advantages of Positive Parenting

by Pena Gaharu

When a parent places more emphasis on rewarding children for good behavior than punishing them for negative behavior, the parent is much more effective. This is because children will more often than not respond favorably to the positive reinforcement that their parent is providing. Considering that most adults follow the same sort of pattern, positive parenting makes perfect sense.

Positive parenting means that as a parent, you need to focus on catching your children doing good things, while correcting negative behaviors as they appear. But, positive parenting means that you also need to put a positive spin on the correction that you provide.

For example, when you hear your child making a derogatory remark about someone the most effective way to correct this behavior is to talk to the child about emotions and how the person might feel if they heard the comment. Often, this type of correction will allow the child to think about their action on a larger scale and to be more careful in the future.

Better Grades in School

One of the areas where parents have traditionally offered negative consequences is the area of education. Positive parenting means that when a child brings home an excellent report card - you celebrate. But, it means that you do not necessarily punish a child for a bad report card. Instead, perhaps you could arrange for a tutor or even clear extra time in your schedule to work with your child in their problem areas. Positive parenting means that the parent gets involved in the child's education - and stays involved.

Continuous positive reinforcement for small achievements will make the child motivated to make even bigger achievements and will be more effective at driving positive change. A child who experienced only negative feedback may not be able to make positive changes on their own, because they lack the know-how and ability to get outside help when necessary.

Children who are raised with positive parenting tend to be more successful adults and they lead more productive lives than children who experienced negative parenting. Positive parenting will also help to teach children how to raise their own children, when the time is right.

In today's world, children are faced with many different types of adversity and with positive parenting they can know in their hearts that their parents are their allies. This helps to reduce the chance that the child will demonstrate risky behaviors like smoking, or alcohol and drug abuse.