If you conducted a survey asking people what are the criteria that makes for a wise and successful parent, you would probably get a varied answer. It is understandable as even child experts have different views in this matter. Hence, you will find in this article all the necessary requisites to make a wise and successful parent.

Read through the list and see whether you meet all the criteria. Don’t worry if you don’t as this gives you the opportunity to improve on your parenting skills.

The wise, good, successful and superb parent fulfills the following criteria:

• Able to provide a nurturing and happy environment for your children to grow (a stable home).

It is a fact that children from a stable home will grow up to be productive and conscientious adults.

• Able to provide the necessities in life (material needs), i.e. food, shelter and clothing.

A certain comfortable level of needs must be met to ensure proper growth and development.

• Able to provide advice, emotional support, guidance and unconditional love among other things.

Children with all their emotional needs being met are conditioned to become better adults. Children who grew up in a loving environment becomes a loving person.

• Able to provide safety, structure and protection.

During the growing-up years, children need to feel protected, safe and secure. They need to feel some solid family structure in their lives that they can depend on as they go through childhood anxieties.

• Able to provide proper rules to introduce discipline and responsibility.

Children need to learn abut rules, about limitations and what is right or wrong. These valuable experiences will teach them to be a discipline and responsible adult. Rules are made to curb them from doing bad things and at the same time, they learn about taking responsibility for their actions.

• Able to provide unlimited opportunities for their children to learn and make mistakes and learn back from those mistakes.

Opportunities should be given or created to improve their social skills, leadership skills, discipline and self-control. Children learn things from the home, the school, their environment and most importantly from their own unique life experiences. The more situation or opportunities they encounter, the more valuable experiences they will gather. It can be good or bad experience. They learn what life is all about and this builds up their character.

• Able to provide opportunities for their children to be who they are and does not force their own expectations on them.

Children need to be allowed to be who they are and feel loved for it. They should not feel pressured to conform to their parent’s expectations.

• Able to provide quality time to be spent with the children, talking and listening and doing things together.

Parents must get close to their children by spending time and doing things together. Parents who spent quality time with their children will form stronger bonds compared to those who don’t.

• Able to provide spiritual and moral guidance.

Children who were brought up with a strong spiritual background and good moral guidance are more likely to grow to be a virtuous person.

• Able to provide encouragement and give praise when necessary.

Your children will face a lot of challenges and disappointments while growing up. As a parent, you can give your support, encouragement and praise at appropriate times. Your children will learn to pick themselves up and move on in adverse situations.

Be a good role model

The above criteria are all essential. However, most importantly do not forget to provide a good example or role model to your children. Research has shown that parents who are responsible and hardworking tend to have children who are responsible and hardworking. Parents who are happy and easy-going tend to have children who are happy and easy-going.

On the flip side, parents who are short-tempered creates an unstable atmosphere at home which rubs off on their children. Parents who lack social skills will not be able to show and teach their children how to interact and relate with other people. Therefore, always keep in mind the influence you have on your children.

The parent’s reward

What is the end result of being a wise, good, successful and superb parent? The parent’s reward is in having children who are responsible, honest, mature, intelligent and dependable and having good emotional (high self-esteem) and social skills development. How many parents long for their children to have all these good qualities? I believe all parents want their children to possess all these good and excellent qualities.

Parents who have worked on their parenting skills and fulfill most of the criteria above shall no doubt have more confidence in their children. As parents, we never went to a parenting school and what we learn is mostly from the school of ‘hard-knocks’, learning from mistakes and experience. In addition, we also pick up things through observation and from our own childhood experience. You should realize that parenting is not an exact science and there is no a one-size-fits all formula for successful parenting.

In summary, my goal as a parent is the same as your goal and that is to provide a conducive growing up environment that enables the child to learn, make mistakes and make the most of herself. From the whole process, I hope that my child grows up to become a responsible mature adult.

Please share your ideas of what makes for a wise, good and successful parent. Your views and comments are most welcome.

photo credit: freeparking

Besides sickness, one thing parents cannot run away from is discipline problem. There is a general agreement in the parenting community that there is no straightforward way to solve discipline problem. Child experts also present different views and approaches to handling this problem. Some may advocate time-out, withholding privileges and grounding while others may recommend corporal punishment.

So as parents, what are we to do? Well, I for one do not mind to try all the recommended approaches to see which one is workable. I believe these methods did not simply come out of nowhere. Certain methods may work for one child and may not work for another. So, finding those that work on your own kids is more of a trial and error process.

The parent’s duty

As a parent, it is our duty to teach our kids what are good and bad behaviors. We will be the one who feel embarrass if our kids bite, bully, fight, steal, etc. Dealing with a discipline problem is not a one time thing. The problem usually does not go away immediately. It normally takes time, patience and commitment. That is why you may often time feel that you are repeating the same advice again and again to the same problem.

The worst thing a parent could do is ignoring a discipline problem. Without a parent’s intervention, your child will not know what he is doing wrong. Even if he does know and there is no action taken by the parents, he will think it is nothing serious. You as a parent can only expect the problem to worsen. If the problem is not dealt with earlier on, the bad behavior becomes a habit and will be tougher to change.

Do not be stingy with praises for good behaviors. This helps to reinforce the message that good behaviors are acceptable. Since we are the role model in our children’s life, make sure you as a parent presents a good example in the first place. Have you ever notice that when you use a curse word, your child is so fast to pick up and use the same word in his vocabulary? Therefore, at times we need to work with ourselves first before we try to solve our children’s problem.

Some of the common problems you may encounter are:
• Inappropriate anger
• Extreme anxiety
• Biting
• Bossiness
• Bullying
• Fighting
• Does not listen
• Lying & cheating
• Selfishness

The above are some of the problems you can expect to face and deal with as a parent. Take heart knowing that parents everywhere are faced with similar problems and dilemma. Therefore, you are not alone.