Copyright 2008

ECHO-SEMINAR
ON
EFFECTIVE
PARENTING
 What Children
Need From Their
Parents
WHAT CHILDREN NEED FROM THEIR PARENTS

1. A Parent who Loves

 First thing first: A parent needs to love and everything
follows.
 All the above discussion are centered in LOVE. Without
love, nothing follows. No trust, no mutual respect, no
understanding, no affection, no hugs, no anything. When
there is no love, man becomes aware of the importance of
the self, he becomes self-centered and learns to love
himself.
 How can you give love, if you do not have it in your heart?
When, as a child you were not hugged, you were not
loved, how can you give these virtues if you do not have it
in the first place?
Faith and hope is nothing without the
gift of love.
So parents should not miss love. It is an
incredible gift to your children.
2. A Parent who Understands,
Cares
Understanding and caring are two
important kinds of feeling in dealing with
your teenager. It is a showing of
sympathy or agreement.
A person’s relational value system. It
comes from the amount of trust you
have invested in a relationship.
3. A Parent who is always around;
who always have the time when I
need them.
But how do you spell LOVE? LOVE is
spelled T I M E. The amount of TIME
that a parent or guardian spends
certainly affects the child’s
development.
No amount of love could be given to a
child if you will give only a little of your
time.
4. A Parent who can Play with Me
“Children are like clocks, they should be
allowed to run”. Play is a very important
aspect of growing up. An adult who
missed play during his growing up years
has missed so much he would like to go
back to that stage of life.
A parent must spend time everyday to
play with his kids, to reassure them of
his love for them. Play initiates openness
and honesty to develop in his relationship
with his kids.
5. A Parent who Trusts
Stages of development of a
child:
1. Dependent
2. Independent
3. Interdependent
Growing up with your children:
1. Letting BE
2. Letting GO
The real end of parenting is to
be able to empower your child
to parent themselves!
A parent must teach his kids to know
how to work in all things at home and
build in them their self-trust and
confidence, making them ready to
face rejections in life.
6. A Parent who dialogues, listens; a Father
who gives a helping hand, especially in my
problems.
 Communication is the lifeblood of the family. Listening is one
approach to help teens talk about their conflicts and discuss
them with an open mind. It shows teens that parents care,
talk about feelings and meanings and find solutions to teen
owned problems. Remember that what they share to us is not
our problem, we help them find options to discover other
things that can be done. Guiding them to a better judgment
is a gift we like to share our children.
To listen effectively, a parent should
avoid nagging, fault-finding, ridiculing,
lecturing. Or even reassuring. Parents
should know the lesson when to be
“silent”, when teens open up their
feelings and problems.
A good listener needs to “hear”
nonverbal and verbal messages 60%
of communication is non verbal. Your
children read all these nonverbal
communication effectively when they
would like to talk to you to ask
permission for a weekend outing, or
ask for extra money.
Reflective listening is just like being a
mirror– you empathize with your teens
feelings and the circumstances of those
feelings. Parent should make a statement
after your child finished speaking and
sharing, then you can give your impression of
his or her feelings. In other words, you
reflect back to your child the feelings you
have discerned beneath the spoken words.
The rules of the game are the following:
1. Be an open door.
2. When you sit down with him/her, be quiet.
Learn to shut up your mouth.
3. Reflect your feelings! Listen and observe
body language. DO not listen while you are
reading the newspaper, working or cooking.
4. Make statements afterwards.
5. When you sit down to listen, your whole world
becomes your child. Nothing else.
6. Learn to keep secrets (at least for the
moment)
7.A Parent who Assures, Encourages,
Affirms
Look back in life and reminisce all the
discouragement that you have met along the way and
the things that it has contributed to your being.
Discouragement and encouragement affect all
individuals at all stages of life, more so during
formative and teen years. Everyone of us has a story
to tell about these two prefixes of en/dis-
couragement.
Discouragement is the basis for most
failure; and encouragement is the basis for
most success. In his book, “People of the
Lie”, M. Scott Peck says, “it is not fun to
fail. But it can be highly educational. We
probably have more to learn from our
failures than from our successes”. We have
to look at failures as an aspect to
encourage and support our teens.
CHILDREN LEARN WHAT THEY
LIVE
Dorothy Law Nolte

If a child lives with criticism,

he learns to condemn.
If a child lives with hostility,
he learns to fight.
If a child lives with fear,
he learns to be apprehensive.
If a child lives with pity,
he learns to feel sorry for himself.
If a child lives with ridicule,
he learns to be shy.
If a child lives with jealousy,
he learns what envy is.
If a child lives with shame,
he learns to feel guilty.
If a child lives with encouragement,
he learns to be confident.
If a child lives with tolerance,
he learns to be patient.
If a child lives with praise,
he learns to be appreciative.
If a child lives with acceptance,
he learns to love.
.
 What are the strategies for
encouraging teens?
 1. Give responsibility
 2. Show appreciation for contributions
at home
 3. Ask your teen for opinions and
suggestions.
 4. Encourage participation in decision
making.
 5. Accept mistakes.
 6. Emphasize the process, not just the
product.
 7. Turn liabilities into assets.
 8. Show confidence in your teen’s
judgment.
 9. Have positive expectations.
 10. Develop alternative ways of viewing
situations.
8. A Parent who fulfills his promise
Fulfilling a promise is very important to a child.
Promises are meant to be fulfilled, not to be
broken. Do not subscribe to the saying that
“promises are given, but to be broken”. A child
or teen respects parents who fulfill their
promises, even if how little a promise is. Do not
ever give a promise if you can’t accomplish it in
time.
A promise is not only one way affair.. Its
fulfillment contributes to mutual respect for
parents and children.
9. A Parent Who is Patient.
Not everyone is given the gift of patience. It is
hard to go to heaven without it.
Some people do not have the patience to wait.
Remember the time when you have to fall in line at a
cashier to pay for a dress, or wait for a person you
have an appointment with, who’s nowhere in sight?
What about teaching a child his alpahbet or a teen
high school who has a problem with his math?
Patience is being able to put with some adversities in
life or inconveniences without getting upset or angry.
10. A Parent who hugs, touches with
affection.
Have you hugged your child today?
 All human beings need to be touched. When they don’t
get enough of touch, they wilt like flowers and plants.
They lose self-esteem and become alienated. Touching
and hugging satisfy our sense of affection. It is healthy
and loving. After the infancy stage, we neglect to touch
or kiss our children. There are different degrees of
touching. A handshake, a pat at the back, a goodnight or
hello kiss. Touching is a non verbal communication that is
a powerful expression of physical affection for a child.
 Prepared by:
Mrs. Genelita Casillan
Parents’ Speakers Bureau Secretary

THANK
YOU!!!!!