Two dimensions critical of child rearing - educate responsible children

When forming a family, people generally take as a reference the family and cultural patterns of the society in which they have been formed. But as children grow up in an increasingly fast-paced and changing world, parents discover the need to readapt their basic patterns to the reality they face. Raising children to be full and capable adults is a demanding but beautiful task, if we assume it as the highest contribution we make to the world we live in.

Important factors in parenting

When it comes to raising children, there are many factors to take into account, among which two main aspects stand out: one is the responsiveness of parents, which includes everything related to the affective world and the care of children, and the other is the structural aspect, which includes the expectations of parents and discipline when educating their children.

According to the way in which they fulfill this set of tasks, parents are classified into four groups or parenting styles:

• Nurturing parents: they provide their children with great possibilities of being successful adults, since they raise them in a positive environment where discipline and order are combined with loving care and unconditional support, based on well-defined limits and exercising discipline with firmness and affection.

• Permissive parents: They are affectionate but very spoiled, they do not set clear and firm limits when educating, which causes their children to be irresponsible and lazy, creating capricious, impulsive and immature adults.

• Uninvolved parents: They exercise weak control in the care and discipline of their children, becoming negligent at times. Their children, as they grow up, are almost always people with affected self-esteem and little empathy.

• Authoritarian parents: They are very controlling and demanding, although they provide stable and orderly life routines, many times they are not very respectful and inflexible with their children, without paying attention to feelings and affection, creating shy, fearful and low self-esteem adults.

The most appropriate parenting

Experts agree that the most recommended parenting style is the nurturing one, which guarantees the formation of adults capable of facing life's challenges from a mature behavior. This parenting style prioritizes respect for children, educating them in a dignified, orderly and disciplined environment, providing security, adequate nutrition, affection and good communication between parents and children, incorporating them into society as responsible and sensitive adults.

Promoting responsible parenting

When becoming parents, people acquire the responsibility to protect and solve all the needs of their children, paying special attention to the respect for all the rights of this new life, because, sometimes, adults, perceiving children as helpless beings, attack in many ways their personal identity and the distinctive features of their personality that make them, from their very birth, a unique and valuable being.

When parents take into account all the aspects involved in the formation of their children, they favor a close and positive communication that enhances the growth and development of both parties. In the process of raising children, parents evolve and improve as individuals, experiencing satisfaction in seeing their children grow as healthy, stable, sensitive and responsible persons, and favoring the learning of new skills that guarantee the personal advancement of everyone in the family.