Parenting Tips Blog

Ten Useful Supernanny Tips for Parents

March 4th, 2010 - Category: General Parenting

Being a  parent is becoming harder and harder in a world that is constantly changing and where morals and high standards continue to diminish. As a parent, you want the best for your children. You want them to succeed in an increasingly competitive world and you want them to make good decisions. The most important factor in determining the success of children in the real world is how they are brought up in the home.

We all want to be the best parent we possibly can be. We want to teach our kids the necessary skills they will need in times of trial and big decisions. With this in mind, as well as the previous statement that everything starts in the home, we’re offering some useful supernanny tips for parents in establishing a productive household with obedient and happy children. The list is not meant to be in order of priority and it is not meant to be an “all inclusive” sure fire method to success. However, taking ideas from this list and implementing them in your own creative way can ensure that you are taking steps in the right direction for your family. The first three come from the supernanny herself, Jo Frost.

1. Determine Your Family Values (What Type of Parent do You Want to Be?)

When you were in grade school your teacher would ask you, “what do you want to be when you grow up?” At first it may have seemed like a silly questions seeing that it felt like forever until “growing up” would actually occur. Looking back now, it didn’t take long to figure out that time flies. Having an idea of what you wanted to be when you grew up gave you focus and direction. The same holds true for parenting. It is important to decide now, whether you’re a first year mother of 1 or an experienced father/mother of 10 wonderful children, what type of parent you want to be.

Determining what type of parent you want to be requires formulating the values you want to uphold in your family. By teaching your kids these values when they are young, you start to develop strong bonds with them as the family unit will have a clear direction and purpose. “As a potter molds clay to form a beautiful creation, so does the strong bond of family and good values.” The article this quote was taken from is worth a read.

2. Lead by Example

Once you have established these core principles and values in your home, make sure that you are really trying your best to follow them. It is absurd to expect your child who is younger and less experienced than you to live up to standards that you yourself aren’t even staying true to. Children learn by imitating their parents. If you want your children to not tell you lies, prove to them that you never lie to them and be sincere in all of your efforts.

3. Spend Time With Your Children

It is a well known fact that spending quality time with your children is immensely important. In fact, it may be THE most important thing in regards to a child’s self-esteem and overall success in life.

Not only does spending time with your child help him/her feel loved and cared for, studies also show that it can help them become more intelligent. Children who spend large amounts of  time with their fathers are said to have higher IQs and are more prone to experiencing better future career prospects.

So, whether it’s nightly story-time with your daughter, a daily game of catch with your son, or simply a nightly meal with the entire family, quality time is essential in establishing a good family environment.

4. Choose the Right Rules for YOUR Family

Each families situation is different. Depending on where you live, how you were raised in your own family, and what goals you want to accomplish with your kids, the rules you set for your children will most likely differ from other families experiencing different circumstances.

Regardless of the rules you set for your family, it is important to remain consistent. Make sure that when a rule is set, a predetermined punishment is fixed, and that you stick to those guidelines. This way, a child is completely aware of the consequences of breaking the rule and knows that he/she will not be able to persuade you out of punishment or compensation, which brings us to our next point.

5. Reward Children for Good Behavior and Work

There is nothing that can replace the value of teaching your children the importance of hard work. Learning to work helps kids know the value of a dollar and teaches them that they can accomplish great things through effort and determination.

Equally important is the importance of rewarding your children for good work. When a child finishes a chore that you set up, he/she should be rewarded for accomplishing the task. This can be easily managed by setting up a free, customizable chore chart through myjobchart.com. You can set up rewards for your children when they finish chores and earn points towards those rewards. When a child knows he/she will be compensated for working, it is easier for them to justify spending the time to do it. You wouldn’t go to work everyday if you didn’t know at the end of the week you would be getting a pay check. Children are no different. They should be rewarded for good behavior and for hard work.

6. Control Video and Computer Game Time

Today, many children are glued to the TV or computer screen as online games and video games continue to increase in popularity. It is easy for these activities to become habit forming and addicting if proper action and rules are not put in place from the beginning. Thus, it is important to, if possible, address the problem before it becomes a problem.

Allocating a maximum “per day” usage of the internet and gaming consoles will go a long way in ensuring that your child’s time is not eaten up by gaming or surfing the net.

7. Keep a Clean Home

A cluttered house promotes stress and irritation. If you’re implementing all the above steps, you may be finding that it is hard to find the time to keep the house as clean as you would want. Though it is time intensive, having a clean house is worth the work and will make your home a pleasant place to be both for you, your kids, their friends, and your friends. Their friends will want to come over and spend time at your house. This makes it easier for you to keep track of their activities and you are more able to be involved in their life.

Here’s some quick hints on keeping a tidy house when time is hard to come by.

• Hire a maid
• Do a little at a  time (don’t overload by thinking you have to clean the whole house in one shot)
• set apart a half hour each day to clean house
• don’t stress over small messes (keep things in perspective)

8. Determine and Keep a Family Routine

A daily routine keeps kids from getting into trouble. The less leisure time they have, the less time they have to try and come up with things to do. It is when kids have nothing to do that they start to get into mischief. They are trying to satisfy a void.

Encouraging children to participate in extra-curricular sports and activities will help fill this void and fill up their day with constructive activities. They will increase their abilities and will increase their confidence. Your kids having a routine will help mold your own daily routine as you will have to plan your day around their activities as well (taking and picking up from school, practice, club meetings…etc). This helps everyone in the family feel accomplished and offers more opportunities for you to praise and show love to your children.

9. Share Your Love

Knowing that they are loved does more than anything to boost the confidence and success of a child. When they know that you are proud of them they want to do more to make you proud. They desire that you are pleased with them and the accomplishments they make.

We all know that this is important but sometimes as parents, it is difficult to know in which ways we can show our love for our children. Here are some suggestions on how you can truly show your child that you care.

• Give them your attention (When they ask you to look at something… LOOK!)
• Listen to them (Try to refrain from always talking and telling. Instead, listen and learn)
• Encourage them (When they do something new, tell them how cool they are. Let them know that no matter what, you still think they are the best in the world.)
• Share With Them (Don’t just share your money and house with them, share with them your thoughts, emotions, ideas, and activities. Make them feel like they are a part of your life)

10. Recognize Your Limitations and Start Fresh

Finally, you are never going to be a perfect parent. The sooner you realize this the better. By understanding that you are not the perfect parent, you open yourself up to new ideas and learning. It is important to be able to adjust to different circumstances and change. Not everything that worked with your first child will work for your second or third child. Each person is different and we all react differently to different ways of being taught. Be willing to learn and grow and change as you start finding out things that work and don’t work for you.

We all have grown up under unique individual circumstances and a lot of the ideas we have about parenting we developed from our parents and how they reared us. If you were raised in an overly strict family, perhaps you want to be on the opposite end and have a very “un-strict” way of parenting. Regardless of this, figure out what your motives are and pinpoint your style. Then, accept that certain things have influenced the way you parent and the reason you do what you do. Finally, understand that you are NOT your parents and you can choose to learn from what they did and not be chained down by it.

Take the good that you’ve learned from them or any other parental figure in your life and utilize those techniques. Discover the bad ones that you may have been exposed to and come up with a reasonable way of changing it.

Are there any other tips that you have on parenting? Please feel free to comment on these and share some of your own.

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