What Should Parental Attitudes Be Like in Child Psychology Development?

While meeting the physical needs of your children is quite simple for us as parents, meeting their psychological needs can be quite difficult in some cases.  Meeting the psychological needs of the child is something that we, as parents, are not fully aware of when it comes to raising children. So, how can one understand a child with a psychological disorder? In this article, we will try to show you the path we will follow while raising our children.

Although there are  many  child-raising methods, psychology experts  underline a number of scientifically accepted principles in child-raising. Our children start life with an empty brain and empty emotions. Which direction we channel them is generally, if not entirely, in our hands. As children begin to grow up and become aware of what is going on around them, the first people they see are their parents. They do this by copying exactly what they see, hear and feel from us parents. First of all, as parents, our approach to our children begins with understanding what childhood means. We were children once too, but we forgot what it was like. We experienced the emotions and thoughts of our childhood as normal adult emotions and thoughts. Now we need to start remembering what childhood means again.

Parenting is never easy and requires serious effort. Now,  as Erdem Ankara Psychiatry and Psychologist Center,  let’s talk about the main principles of being a good parent, accepted all over the world and across cultures. The principles we will talk about are not quick and easy. We have to be realistic about this and probably no one person will be able to achieve it all. However, we should not refrain from making efforts on this path. After all, as all parents, we want the best for our children. Here are the tips on raising children psychologically   .

1. Being a Good Role Model:

Do not tell them the habits you want to see in your children in the imperative mood, that is, by giving them directives. Practice exactly the habits you want to see in your child. A form of learning in education is learning by imitation. Since our children’s first teachers will be their parents, they will first start their education life by imitating you. Children are very good followers and imitators. They follow and enforce all the actions of the parents. Rather than saying “read a book”, we should read books with them. In short, be the person you want your child to be.

2. Love Your Child and Show It:

Excessive love does not spoil the child. However, things given or done instead of love will spoil your child. Attitudes such as constantly buying toys, overindulgence, overprotection, and keeping low expectations for your child are substituted for love, and if you give these to your child, you will spoil your child.

Giving love can be as simple as giving him a warm hug rather than a toy. Spending time with your child, listening to and trying to solve problems that are very simple and unimportant to us is a sign of love. Showing these affectionate behaviors is both beneficial to  child psychology and triggers the release of feel-good hormones such as oxytocin, opioids and prolactin. These neurochemicals bring our child a deep sense of calm, emotional warmth, and contentment.

3. Be Kind and Consistent:

Babies are born with about 100 billion brain cells (neurons) with relatively few connections. These connections form our thoughts, guide our actions, shape our personalities, and fundamentally determine who we are. They develop and become stronger through the experiences in our lives.

If you provide your child with positive experiences, they will have the ability to have positive experiences and pass them on to others.

If you give your child negative experiences, you cannot create a necessary development area for their positive development.

Sing with your child. Tickle your child. Go to the park. Think about a question he couldn’t solve in his homework. Support him while he learns to ride a bike. Laugh with him. Be sad with him. These positive experiences not only create good connections in your child’s brain, they also create memories that your child carries for life.

It’s hard to keep a positive attitude when it comes to child discipline. However, it is possible to apply positive discipline. Do not resort to any actions that involve child violence. Child psychiatrists say that you should not even spank your child’s butt. Being a good parent means you need to teach your child what is right and what is wrong. Setting boundaries and being consistent is the key to good discipline. Be courteous but consistently firm when enforcing these rules. Focus on the reason behind the child’s  psychological behavior . And instead of punishing for the past, create learning opportunities for the future.

4. Be a Safe Haven for Your Child:

Make your child feel that you will always be there for them by being sensitive to how they make you feel and their needs. Support and accept your child as a person. Be a warm and safe haven for your child to discover you. Children raised by consistently responsive parents tend to have better psychological development, social development, and mental health outcomes.

5. Talk to Your Child and Help Them Integrate:

Most of us already know the importance of communication. Talk to your child and listen carefully.

By establishing an open line of communication, you will have a better relationship with your child and your child will come to you if there is a problem. He will not hide anything from you. Even if what they do is bad behavior that you wouldn’t approve of, they will still come to you. In this way, you will learn about any problems related to your child.

When you keep communication open with your children, you help your children integrate different parts of their brains.

Integration is similar to parts that must work together to have a healthy body, such as the coordination of different organs. When different parts of the brain come together, they can function harmoniously as a whole, meaning less anger, more cooperative behavior, and more empathy.

To do this, talk to your children about their troubling experiences. Ask your child to describe what happened and how he felt. You don’t have to provide solutions. In fact,  child psychology  experts, namely  psychologists,  are always against children’s problems being solved by parents. You don’t need to have all the answers to be a good parent. Simply listening to their conversation and asking clarifying questions will help them understand their experiences and piece together memories.

6. Reflect on Your Own Childhood:

Many of us want to raise our children differently than our own parents raised us. Even if we had a happy childhood, we still want to behave differently from the way we were raised. But often, as soon as I open my mouth, we start acting like our own parents.

Try to understand why our own parents behaved the way they did by reflecting on our own childhood. Why did they treat you that way when you were a child and why did they have to raise you that way? Think carefully about the answers to these questions when you encounter a situation related to your child, and change your behavior and thoughts next time. You may not be successful the first time, but don’t give up. Changing this attitude takes a lot of practice.

7. Pay Attention to Your Health and Psychological State:

With birth, you take on perhaps the biggest responsibility in the world. After the birth of your child, health problems may arise and you may experience problems with your marriage. In such cases, you should definitely pay attention to your health and get help from marriage counselors if necessary, in order not to reflect negative situations on your child. If your marriage goes bad, it will always be the children who suffer. You should pay attention to your mental and physical health while raising your child.

8. Do Not Beat Your Child No Matter What:

As we mentioned earlier, child beating can provide comfort and subjugation to parents in the short term. However, this attitude will not teach your child to distinguish right from wrong. This will only teach him to fear the consequences of his actions. Your child will be motivated not to do the wrong thing, but rather not to be caught doing it.

Beating will teach your child that he can solve everything with violence, and he will use this path throughout his life. Research has shown that children who are raised exposed to child violence at home tend to solve their problems by swearing and fighting. Regardless of the issue, although beating children seems to solve problems in the short term, it actually causes the problems to grow.

9. You Must Have Goals:

You must have a goal when raising your child. Every parent wants their children to be successful at school, productive, responsible, independent, compatible with their environment, interested, healthy and happy. How much time do we spend to achieve these goals and should we give up when we fail? Should we save the day like most parents do? You should spend time on your children and not give up on your goals. You definitely won’t see all the behavioral patterns you want in your children. But when you fail in one that is worth making effort for, you should fight for the other.

As a result, parenting is the most researched area in psychology. Many cultivation practices have been scientifically researched, questioned, verified and revised. However, since every child is different, even though the things we have mentioned above are scientifically accepted as principles, you, as parents, have to determine and develop your own methods. To do this, you need to know your child very well.

Although parenting is difficult, the good part is that there is always reward at the end. The bad part is, the rewards often come long after the hard work is done. If we do our best now, we will eventually reap the rewards and have nothing to regret.