Parents serve as role models not only through direct interactions with their children, but through the examples they set with their attitude and behavior within the family and in the outside world. By addressing their concerns, sharing their lives, and maintaining a constructive perspective, parents can contibute to their children’s personal growth and development .
Definition
Role models are often subjects of admiration and emulation. Through their personal qualities and achievements, they can inspire others to strive and develop without direct instruction. Due to their regular presence and interaction with their children, parents can serve as consistent and evolving role models for their children. The child development experts at the PBS Parents website note that parents can be role models for learning by integrating what school-age children have already learned into daily life.
Considerations
Families are becoming increasingly diverse, states the New York University Child Care Center, as children may be part of same-sex, interracial and multi-generational families. The pediatric pros at the Kidshealth website note that diversity is also the reality of both school and the workplace. Parents who show a willingness to interact with others, and who focus on the richness of life that results from diversity, can help their children learn to appreciate and respect cultural differences.
Benefits
As children develop, they need guidance on an increasingly complex array of issues. Parents can share more of the choices and decision-making inherent in their own lives to offer as examples. By displaying moral and ethical behavior, parents can also impart values which can counter the negative influences children may receive from their peers or media. The responsibility of being a role model can also encourage parents to better themselves. For instance, parents who try to resolve their job dissatisfaction may find they serve as a constructive example of change.
Significance
Role models are human; they make mistakes. Parents who admit to their mistakes, learn from them, and strive to better themselves can serve as powerful influences for children’s emotional growth. By addressing problems and conflicts in their own lives (such as trying to lose weight or handle a demanding supervisor at work) and sharing the process in an age-appropriate manner, parents can encourage their children to address their own concerns. Parents should also display non-aggressive responses to stress and anger management. The experts at the KidsHealth website warn that children who display aggressive behavior often learn to do so from a role model at home.
Strategies
Communicate with your children and stay active in their lives. Take the time to listen and share their concerns, so they feel both loved and respected. Practice respect and tolerance, to provide clear standards of acceptable behavior. Develop fun and engaging family activities, which share and develop the interests of both you and your children.
Celebration
Aaawww…Parents…joy, hope, stability, security, acceptance, and most of all love. Parents play an important role in imparting many things into their kiddos lives and there is no doubt in my mind there should be a day to celebrate them….Right?
Parents’ Day was founded in 1994 by then President Bill Clinton, who declared the fourth Sunday of July as a day to “commemorate the role of parents and to promote ideal parenthood”. According to the National Parents’ Day Council, “this is not just a day to honor Moms and Dads, but also a day when parents can rededicate themselves to their children”. The idea behind Parent’s Day is to celebrate the love we receive form our parents and also we can actually celebrate them through their fair by Beautiful Anniversary Poems For Parents