It’s not easy to raise a child today – with rapidly increasing distractions brought by technology. We hope to inform parents on how to take advantage of technology using different parenting styles to better engage your child in growing up well.
Authoritative Style
Parents who harbors high expectations of their children with a no-nonsense attitude towards rules. This parenting style can be rigid to a fault, but at times can lead to responsible growth in your children.
Children raised in this manner grow up to be mature and responsible, but inflexible. If taken to the extreme, it may have adverse side effects in a child’s mentality and promote negative growth. In this rapidly changing world, it may be ideal to relax authoritative behaviour to suit the current trend.
Be more open to communication, get interested and involved with your children. You can even stipulate set amount of time spent on technology or even show your children how to leverage on technology to improve their or others’ quality of life. Show your children that technology when used correctly, can be beneficial performing our daily duties. Many life lessons can be taught through technology otherwise not taught in school, such as personal self-development.
Responsive Style
Parents are attuned to their children’s needs and respond accordingly to their emotional needs. Children may grow up to be understanding and perceptive to others emotions, but be careful not to display this trait too excessively, as it may end up spoiling them.
You can use technology to teach your children interactivity, which lends flexibility, understanding and stretching the mind. Such children can turn out curious, inquisitive, intelligent and understanding – some positive traits of a well-raised child.
Involved Style
Children look towards people the closest to them – their parents. As parents, by being more involved with their children, they can foster close relationship bonds with their children. Show your children that they can have confidence in confiding in their parents about the happenings going on.
Technology helps break down boundaries and foster closeness in the family relationship by drawing both parent and child on a common platform. With this common platform, they can learn something new together and also about each other.
By being involved, at every milestones of the child’s development, the child will learn how to appreciate people around him and be more receptive to learn from others. It is beneficial to be inclusive in moderation, but when taken to excess, it may cause the child to be overly-entitled and dependent.
Technology has revolutionized the world in developing new ways on how humans perform in their daily lives. Technology also has created a greater distance between people which puts up barriers to communication, reducing people into constantly looking at their smartphones.
As a parent, you would want the best for your child. You can help, teach them to use technology for the greater good. Show them that open communication is better than communicating through technology. Technology is here to stay and they can benefit our lives in so much more when used correctly. Which parenting style will you use to teach your child the necessary communication skills to reconnect with people?
