Parental Characteristics Influencing Child Behavior
Children learn by example and often develop their parent's characteristics, which can show through behavior patterns at an early age. Parental influences, whether intentional or subconscious, can define a child's behavior patterns for a lifetime. Ideally, these influences are positive. However, parents are human and sometimes exhibit less than desirable characteristics that likewise manifest in their children. Understanding the enormity of how parental characteristics influence children helps parents through the journey of raising well-adjusted children.
-
Patience
-
Patient parents foster confidence in children. Patient, calm parents directly influence their children's behavior in everyday situations. For example, parental reactions to running late play a large role in how their children handle deadlines and pressure. Parental impatience behind the wheel of a car may set the tone for how children behave when the school bus or a friend is running late. Adults who understand the futility of impatience are likely to see the characteristic pleasantly displayed through their children on a daily basis, such as when they are at school waiting in line at the drinking fountain or in the cafeteria.
Conversely, impatient parents can instill the sense of a hurried, high-speed lifestyle in their children that can result in unnecessary stress and an inability to cope with life's minor inconveniences.
Respect
-
How parents argue and reconcile contributes to their child's sense of security. Parents who posses a natural respect for each other as well as their children have a higher chance of raising kids who are confident enough to realize they can work through inevitable disagreements effectively. According to an article by Tom Bass, clinical director at Family Services of Winnetka-Northfield, a mutually supportive parenting partnership helps children form higher levels of cognitive and emotional development. Married or divorced, parents are encouraged to exemplify an ongoing effort to understand each other with respect.
Anxiety
-
Show your children you're capable of leaving worries behind. Anxious parents can hand down their worries to children. Anxiety to some degree is normal, but a parent shouldn't worry to the point that it inhibits her child's natural curiosity. For example, a parent who constantly fears the risks of riding a bike might stifle her child's curiosity to learn how to ride a bike.
Children can sense when a parent allows reasonable anxiety to get out of hand, and the results can be detrimental to a child's willingness to explore his world with a safe and healthy free spirit. No parent enjoys worrying, but controlling the tendency to let it escalate shows your children that you are able to keep things in perspective. In turn, this gives children the ability to distinguish between imagined and justifiable worries they are likely to encounter at school and with friends.
-
-
Children learn by example and often develop their parents characteristics, which can show through behavior patterns at an early age. Parental influences, whether intentional or subconscious, can define a childs behavior patterns for a lifetime. Ideal
-
Attachment parenting focuses on creating a secure bond between parent and child through practices such as natural birth, baby wearing, breastfeeding, co-sleeping and responding to a babys cues. Though the practice is becoming more popular -- with eve
-
Theres no one-size-fits-all answer to this question. It depends on several factors, including:* The childs developmental stage: Its important to introduce concepts about sex and gender in a way thats appropriate for their understanding. Younger child
