Principles of positive parentingEdit
Safe and Engaging Environment
A protective environment that is safe, supervised, and provides opportunities to explore, play, and learn promotes healthy child development at all ages.[1]
Positive Learning Environment
This principle involves teaching parents to be their children’s first teacher. This means that parents must learn to respond to their children’s requests in a positive and constructive manner while also helping them learn to solve problems on their own.[1]
Assertive Discipline
The program teaches parents how to change from using ineffective and coercive discipline such as physical punishment, shouting, and threatening to using effective strategies in specific situations. Effective strategies include selecting ground rules for specific situations, discussing rules with children, giving clear, calm, and age-appropriate directions and requests, presenting logical consequences, using quiet time and time out, and using planned ignoring (p. 509).[1]
Realistic Expectations
This helps parents change expectations and goals for child behavior to be developmentally appropriate for the child and realistic for the parent. Parents who have more realistic expectations of this child’s capabilities are less likely to engage in child abuse or child neglect.[1]
Parental Self-Care
This principle aims at teaching parents practical skills so that they may view parenting as part of a larger context related to self-care, resourcefulness, and well-being and maintain a sense of self-esteem.[1]