The bond between parents and children is one of love and affection; yet we come

across people who hate their parents and also people who feel that their parents have
let them down. Why it this the case ? Are these people unnatural or are they justified ?
Perhaps in some cases they are justified. Most men and women get married and have
children but not all of them are worthy of being parents. Parenthood, like other
responsibilities, needs devotion, dedication and a lot of preparation. Prospective parents
must recognize their responsibilities and realize what parenthood involves.
The first essential of good parenthood is the acceptance of the role.
A man who marries when he is young may resent his first child for it would be a rival for
the affection of the lady of the house. Similarly. a woman may resent her first child
because it suddenly puts her in a different class of women. Couples who become
parents can no longer call their time their own. Often the newcomer may necessitate
changes in the household routine, giving up of a job on the part of the mother and
various other sacrifices. The world of affection which should surround a child should
precede its birth. It is here that good parenthood begins.
Fondness, however, is at no stage a synonym of pampering and spoiling children.
Parents have the responsibility of cultivating those qualities in their children which may
help them to face life, make them brave and likeable human beings, impart to them a
sense of integrity and strength and these lessons cannot be learnt haphazardly.
Parenthood is a full-time task and the only way of cultivating the right habits in children
is through example and by providing an atmosphere which is conducive to the growth of
these qualities. A child learns these virtues at home and the influence of his parents can
counteract all other influences whether good or bad.
This is the theoretical aspect; in practice, the recipe for good parenthood is love and
understanding. These two envelop a whole world in themselves. Love means love in the
right degree, love which does not ignore discipline, love which does not yield for the
wrong reasons and for the wrong ends, love which can provide security and confidence
for the growing child, love which leads to sacrifices and makes one devote some time
and join in enjoying the simple pleasures of childhood. Understanding means trying to

find what the child wants and why, giving him the freedom to try new ideas, to
experiment with hobbies and learn from the world of nature. Understanding in love
becomes hiding one's fears and allowing the child to develop a sense of adventure and
fearlessness; it means loving without clinging. It is not only confined to this, it extends
further. It includes patience and forbearance. There may be occasions when a child may
be afraid of things: of participation in social and public functions, of swimming of heights
and endless other things. Understanding means trying to find out the reasons for the
fear and perhaps giving in for the time being and helping the child to overcome it
gradually.
Whatever is of value in the human character is born out of love and understanding.
There can be no strict rules that one should say "No"' or put one's foot down or allow a
child complete freedom. Each situation has to be judged and examined individually and
each parent has to make the decision himself or herself. But there can be one rule: don't
corrupt the child. Don't teach it to accept the second best, don't bribe it into obedience,
don't be tyrannized by its tantrums, don't blackmail it or allow it to blackmail you. If the
child remains incorruptible, it has every chance of growing up to be a person of
generosity and compassion.
Being a good parent is in itself a process of growing up. One should have the capacity
to love and to love wisely: it is this kind of person who makes a good parent. Share
yourself with your children and they will love you and learn from you.
Good Parents Make Themselves Available
In our busy world, no one can be available to their children 24-7, by any means.
Instead, good parents make time each day to focus solely on their children, without
distractions from television, computers or phones. Dedicated quality time opens the
lines of communication, which is especially important as tweens face potentially heavy
issues like bullying, anxiety and mood changes.

Good Parents Listen Actively

Good parents engage in active listening, in which they restate and mirror back what
their child is saying and feeling. Doing so makes a child feel truly heard. Supportive
parents also encourage their children to communicate their emotions by asking
questions like, "How did that make you feel?" Finally, good parents avoid giving advice
unless specifically asked and refrain from interjecting personal anecdotes into the
conversation. Listening means listening, not talking.
Good Parents Demonstrate Warmth
A hallmark of the best parenting style, called authoritative parenting, involves showing
warmth. Warmth is demonstrated through positive facial expressions, patient actions
and affectionate speech. Being warm does not mean agreeing with everything your
child does or says. Rather, it means consistently showing emotional affection toward the
child as a person even when disciplining him for inappropriate actions.
Good Parents Set Clear Boundaries
While it may be tempting to be friends with your child first and foremost, good parents
respect that there is a parent-child hierarchy. Children thrive when there is structure in
their lives, and rules help create that structure. Therefore, supportive parents set up
clear rules and consequences and follow through on discipline when boundaries are
crossed. Doing so helps kids learn responsibility. During the tween years, good parents
often allow children to be part of the decision making process about what constitutes
reasonable rules and punishments.
Emotional support. Boys and girls identified emotional support as evidence of a good
relationship and a sign that parents care.
Mothers might express emotional support directly through physical and verbal affection.
As one boy described:

Like affection is, you know, when she goes up to you and shell be like, Oh, you know,
shell give you a hug and she will try and give you a kiss and stuff. And my moms done
that but like its not like all the time or like she always triesyou know, shes always like
I love you. And Im like Okay, and then shes like Say it. And like she plays with me
and Im like, OK, I love you too.
However, affectionate behavior was not necessarily required to know that parents care.
A girl objected to the survey item Most of the time your mother is warm and loving
toward you because it implied that mothers were sometimes not warm and loving. In
her view, mothers were always warm and loving regardless of their behavior. For one
girl, even yelling implied concern:
if theyre yelling at you, that means they really love you because theyre really
concerned about you Theres not a day that goes by that she doesnt say, Take care
of yourself, be careful, dont do this, dont do that, and that means shes really loving
and shes concerned.
Fathers rarely expressed affection directly, but they offered emotional support in other
ways. Expressions of paternal interest signified caring. For example, a father might ask
how his son is doing in school or discuss the sons future with him. Or a father might
notice when his daughter is upset after school and ask her how she is doing and what
happened. However, not all girls received as much emotional support from their fathers
as they desired. One commented, Well, whenever I get a chance to see my dad he like
spoils me, and I really dont like that because I like him to be more comforting, like
asking me about stuff, and not buy me stuff.
Parental control.
A final theme that arose in reference to both good relationships and caring was parental
control. Aspects of parental con- trol included strictness, parental monitoring, and a form
of conditional permissiveness. Girls spoke repeatedly of parental strictness. Fathers in
particular were viewed as restricting their daughters freedom and ac- tivities. Although
girls found this behavior irritating, they attributed it to parental concern:

In contrast, boys rarely mentioned parental restrictions, and only one made a
connection between parental strictness and caring. A few adolescents expressed a
contrasting view, citing parental permissiveness (low control) as an indication of good
parentadolescent relationships. As one boy said, for me to have a good
relationship with my mom would probably be like that shell let me do stuff, like maybe
like I want to go out late with my friends and shell let me go. However, other youth
rejected this position. One girl reasoned, I think most teens would de- scribe a good
relationship by saying Oh, my mom lets me do whatever I want. She cares for me or
she, you know, is there for me. And I dont necessarily agree with that.
Parental monitoring, in which parents checked on the activity of the adolescents, was
mentioned by boys and girls alike. As one boy said, you know, like, theyre asking
me where am I going to be, what time am I going to come home to me its just a sign
that they care. Boys also cited monitoring of their school performance as a form of
paternal caring. One reflected, he always asks me about school and How are you
doing in school? and How are your grades? I mean he shows that he cares about
me . In contrast, one girl saw monitoring as simply part of a mothers role:
if someones not getting any attention from their mother and the moms just letting
them go anywhere they want and not even asking where you going to be, what time are
you going to get home. I feel that thats just kind of forgetting about their responsibility
because the mom is responsible for knowing where their kid is.
Thus, for many teenagers monitoring was interpreted as a form of caring, but for a few it
was a basic maternal duty.
A special form of maternal control emerged in girls discussions: mothers might support
a girls freedom as long as certain conditions were met, a subtheme we labeled
conditional permissiveness. As one girl recounted:

I would ask my dad to let me go out but hell keep thinking about it and my mom will
be like yes, you can go and even though my dad says no, it doesnt really matter

cause I mean, my mother tells him why shouldnt she go out when she brings you good
grades, she does the chores, she takes care of your son and daughter, what else do
you want? my mom is always saying that and shes like you can go as long as you
do your stuff, the stuff that youre supposed to do.
Explanations of Parental Behavior: Culture, Gender, and Parental Upbringing
Although the interview protocol did not include questions on why parents behave as
they do, participants often addressed this issue. Boys and girls identified parental
upbringing, culture, gender, and life stage as forces shaping teenagers relationships
with parents These explanatory factors often co-occurred in adolescents explanations.
Parents upbringing was usually cited to explain their strictness or leniency. In some
cases, parents granted children freedom because their own parents had been lenient. A
girl described her mothers perspective as follows:
Gender emerged as a third factor influencing parentadolescent relationships. Boys and
girls described different levels of communication and emphasized different kinds of
support and caring from mothers and fathers, implying that parentchild relationships
were influenced by parent gender. Some teenagers invoked gender directly by explicitly
contrasting their relationships with mother and fathers. For example, commenting on the
survey items on paternal support, a boy said: I think they should have like completely
different questions cause these are exactly the same as the maternal support questions
and its different with father. A girl linked the quality of relationships with parents directly
to gender, arguing that shared gender simplified good motherdaughter relationships,
whereas a lack of gender-based common interests made good father daughter
relationships difficult:
I think its hard to have a good relationship with your dad, especially like if youre
growing up. Cause with your mother, you know, youre a girl, shes a girl, so thats easy.
But its harder when hes a guy cause you dont have the same interests.
A fourth explanatory concept was parental role expectations, which were intertwined
with gender and culture. Adolescents saw adult roles (especially parental roles) as
rooted in the responsibilities of providing for the family: parents are supposed to provide

food and shelter. Beyond this, as noted earlier, teenagers held differential expectations
for mothers and fathers that followed traditional gender lines: mothers were supposed to
cook, care for the children, and take care of the house; fathers worked to support the
family.
Finally, A good parent realizes that one of the best gifts that he can offer his
children is himself.
Too many parents try to buy their way to their childrens hearts. Ive been around many
teens during the last eight years. I have not known any who I thought were deprived by
having to drive an older model car, etc. However, I have known a number of teens
whose parents were too busy for them and unavailable emotionally. I have known
several who received no moral or spiritual direction from their parents, whatsoever.
Consequently, these kids felt as if their parents really did not know what was going on in
their lives not to mention their hearts. My children need a parents who is fully engaged
in their lives.
When my children were small, I would generally run every morning. I remember them
asking me a few times, Why do you run, Daddy? My general answer was, so I can
be your Daddy longer. That is true on many levels. I bless my children when I take
care of myself. When I spend time in daily prayer, reading Scripture, and perhaps
reading a book that feeds me, I bless my children. I want to give them a dad (or mom)
that takes care of himself.

References
1. http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-Parent
2. http://www.wikihow.com/Be-a-Good-Parent
3. http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/ways-to-be-fantasticparent/
4. http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/8-ways-to-be-a-betterparent/
5. http://www.greatschools.org/parenting/teaching-values/14-what-makes-a-greatparent.gs