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Key Takeaways
• Setting limits and boundaries helps kids feel safe and teaches them how to navigate the world.
• Spending quality time with your child builds trust, strengthens your bond, and supports their emotional well-being.
• Being a good role model shows your child how to behave with kindness, honesty, and respect.
There are no perfect parents, but there are plenty of things you can do that will make you a fantastic one. Now we’ve gathered our all-time favorite nuggets of advice in one place. Broadly speaking, this is what the experts say about how to be a good parent and improve your parenting skills:
- Set limits
- Spend quality time with your kids
- Be a good role model
- Praise your kids
- Trust yourself
- Teach your kids social skills
- Teach gratitude
- Make meal time family time
- Say “I love you.”
- Encourage physical activity
- Keep up with your kids’ routine health care
Read on to learn more about what this looks like in practice and how to put some of our expert tips to good use.
Set Smart Limits
Take charge. Children crave limits, which help them understand and manage an often confusing world. Show your love by setting boundaries so your kids can explore and discover their passions safely.
Don’t clip your child’s wings. Your toddler’s mission in life is to gain independence. So when they’re developmentally capable of putting their toys away, clearing their plate from the table, and dressing themselves, let them. Giving a child responsibility is good for their self-esteem (and your sanity!).
Don’t try to fix everything. Give young kids a chance to find their own solutions. When you lovingly acknowledge a child’s minor frustrations without immediately rushing in to save them, you teach them self-reliance and resilience.
Remember that discipline is not punishment. Enforcing limits is really about teaching kids how to behave in the world and helping them to become competent, caring, and in control, not about punishing them.
Pick your battles. Kids can’t absorb too many rules without turning off and tuning out. Forget arguing about little stuff like fashion choices and occasional potty language. Focus on the things that really matter, like no hitting, rude talk, or lying.
Create Your Own Quality Time
Play with your children. Let them choose the activity, and don’t worry about rules. Just go with the flow and have fun—you don’t always have to be the fun parent, but play offers plenty of opportunity for bonding. That’s the name of the game.
Read books together every day. Get started when they’re a newborn; babies love listening to the sound of their parents’ voices. Cuddling up with your child and a book is a great bonding experience that will set them up for a lifetime of reading.
Schedule daily special time. Let your child choose an activity where you hang out together for 10 or 15 minutes with no interruptions. There’s no better way for you to show your love.
Encourage family time. The greatest untapped resource available for improving the lives of our children is time with their parents. Kids with engaged parents do better in school, problem-solve more successfully, and generally cope better with whatever life throws at them.
Make warm memories. Your children will probably not remember anything that you say to them, but they will recall the family traditions—like bedtimes and game nights—that you do together.
Be a Good Role Model
Be the role model your children deserve. Kids learn by watching their parents. Modeling appropriate, respectful, good behavior works much better than telling them what to do.
Fess up when you blow it. This is the best way to show your child how and when they should apologize.
Live a little greener. Show your kids how easy it is to care for the environment. Waste less, recycle, reuse, and conserve each day. Spend an afternoon picking up trash around the neighborhood.
Always tell the truth. It’s how you want your child to behave, right? Teach honesty through imitation.
Kiss and hug your partner in front of the kids. Your partnership is one example your child has of what an intimate relationship looks, feels, and sounds like. So it’s important to set a great standard.
Respect parenting differences. Support your co-parent’s basic approach to raising kids—unless it’s way out of line. Criticizing or arguing with your partner will do more harm to your relationship and your child’s sense of security than if you accept standards that are different from your own.
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