The question “How can I be a better parent?” has been raised hundreds of times over the course of my 40+ years as a pediatrician. But before I provide specific advice, let’s review the definition of parenting.
The definition typically refers to the raising or rearing of a child or children, especially the care, love and guidance given by a parent. Similarly, parenting or child rearing can be considered the practice of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.
Parents protect the child from harm and provide safe, stable nurturing relationships that enhance positive childhood experiences. The avoidance of harm and the promotion of love are the key elements for the parenting that raise a child to enhance her/his development and health in the years ahead and for the next generation to come.
I am convinced that we all need advice and guidance to succeed in the role of parent in today’s society.
I want to draw from my book, Conscious Parenting: Using the Parental Awareness Threshold, and consider three main areas for discussion here: instruction, engagement and involvement.
1. Accept Instruction.
Parents need to accept instruction about the care of children. Nutrition, infant care, health care, discipline, behavior, safety and education are all critical aspects of advice that parents often seek. They wish to know what their expectations should be, what changes will occur, and how they should negotiate all of these matters.
Early nutrition tends to focus on the merits of breastfeeding as the ultimate initial source of nutrition and its ongoing and lifelong effects for the benefit of a children and even the mother. Optimal nutrition is critical to early development as a biological need but does not guarantee excellent parenting.
Infant care (nurturing through safe, stable relationships) is another critical component to parenting and books promoting such are everywhere.
Health care leading to excellent medical care is intended to maximize the physical and emotional well-being of our children. While so important, health care alone will not guarantee solid parenting.
Discipline, behavior and safety are significantly linked and learned by instruction and via experience.
Education (parental and social and organized) is critical at so many levels. How parents, social influences and teachers use their impact to provide the necessary education and necessary exposure to the spoken and written word can help determine a substantial amount of the background for healthy growth.
Previously, I advanced a paradigm that considers parenting as an exercise in raising citizens, people that take care of each other. I break it down in my book, My Children’s Children: Raising Young Citizens in the Age of Columbine, but essentially, by accepting instruction about citizenship, parents can lead the way for their children.
Parenting is not an innate ability in today’s society. It requires instruction, support, work and a “village.” Parents must be willing to accept the humility of nurturing their children with the help of family, friends, professionals and fellow citizens. That is what we mean by a village—all of these groups assisting with help as we need it.
2. Be Actively Engaged.
Since parenting is not a passive experience, active engagement by parents is essential. Parenting should be a give-and-take exercise. For infants and younger children, parenting is described as a serve-and-return interaction—parents provide a stimulus, children return with a response, and the cycle continues to its logical conclusion.
Children can also provide the initial stimulus and parents return the stimulus with an engaged response. The science is now clear that early brain wiring or circuitry is vitally dependent on the continuous stream of input or information that occurs with early parent-child serve-and-return exchanges. Positive exchanges lead to healthy wiring and brain connections, and negative exchanges can hamper the wiring and connections.
Safe, stable and nurturing relationships (SSNRs) are the key to childhood wellness and, eventually, adult wellness. SSNRs provide the basic framework that allows parents and children to react to stress in positive ways so that children will grow into healthy adults and parents also.
Healthy adults (nurtured with SSNRs in childhood) tend to have fewer physical problems and are far more likely to succeed in raising healthy children who understand their responsibilities as citizens—to encourage and support all of their fellow citizens.
3. Stay Involved!
The active engagement of parenting is at two levels—getting involved and staying involved. It is mandatory for parents to get involved at so many levels. Direct involvement with their children, while intuitive or “second-nature,” is often lacking in a sustained way. Involvement can then spread to include their spouse or significant family support. After that, involvement extends far beyond the reaches of the residence—to their schools, to their faith-based organization and to their community. Getting involved in these spheres allows for their social growth and social investment.
American political scientist Robert D. Putnam writes in his book, Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, that social capital—active involvement with folks in our community—is a potent community tonic. It can activate community resources for improvement; it can make us all aware of how closely linked we all are; and it serves to improve our lives through action and interaction at so many levels.
Healthcare futurist Leland Kaiser once said 12 pretty simple words that have stuck with me for decades: “I am the problem; I am the solution; I am the resource.” It is a powerful message.
“I am the problem” refers to taking personal ownership of the issues in my community and acknowledging that all problems are issues for my attention. “I am the solution” refers to working with my fellow citizens. “I am the resource” refers to the willingness to devote my continuing energies to the community. We could just as easily substitute the “we” in the sentence: We are the problem, we are the solution, we are the resource.
So, instruction, engagement, and involvement are mandatory elements of the process that is parenting. We all should accept instruction, actively be engaged and commit to continued involvement.
This is a joint venture to be viewed as a glorious challenge with wondrous outcomes possible. These factors make us a better parent.
Dr. Bob Saul is a Professor of Pediatrics (Emeritus) at Prisma Health in Greenville, South Carolina. He worked as a pediatrician for more than 40 years.
