Purpose of Parenting

Parents are meant to protect and prepare children to survive and to thrive.  There are four main points that need to happen in parenting.  First there is courage.  This is necessary to have in parenting their children.  The next is responsibility.  I really liked how my teacher split the word into response.ability.  We need to have the ability to have a response.  There are a few different parts of responsibility including choices, natural consequences, and logical consequences (1 too dangerous, 2 too far in the future, and 3 if it affects others).  The next is cooperation.  I thought it was interesting because my teacher talked about how it is important to let kids work out their arguments so they can learn how to cooperate.  The last part is respect.  We need to respect our children if they are to respect us.  They learn through example.  It is also important to remember that children understand the tone of the different words that are being said.