Nurturing and Effective Parenting

Abstract

Here I will present one way to parent which has worked for me and my family. I would like you to try this method as if you were a child in a home where the parents used the methods that are described. In this parenting approach parents share with their children honestly, listen to their children’s ideas and feelings, and work with them in a loving and respectful way to resolve conflicts or differences. The exercises which follow will help you determine whether you would feel differently about yourself now had the people in your home used this model. They will also help you consider if your children would have felt and acted differently had they grown up in a home where things were handled using this model.

The family is formed not for the survival of the fittest but for the weakest. It is not an economic unit but an emotional one. This is not the place where people ruthlessly compete with each other but where they work for each other. Its business is taking care, and when it works, it is not callous but kind.

Ellen Goodman, in The Boston Globe