by Rose Williams

Created on: May 19, 2010   Last Updated: May 20, 2010

How to be the best parent you can be to your child

The first rule is do not wait to become one to start learning how to be one.  Child rearing should not be reduced to the level of experimenting with guinea pigs, yet to be blunt that is exactly what usually happens.  As a rule, you raise your children the way your parents raised you, but how good was the job they did with you?  How many times have you said to yourself, “when I get older, I will not treat my children that way,” and still, maybe unconsciously repeat the behavior? 

With the epidemic of child abuse and neglect running rampant, proper parenting skills should be on every school’s agenda. You are taught basic skills like reading, writing and arithmetic and in my days, you were taught cooking and sewing.  Today sex education is taught which includes birth control, yet this is not stopping the growth of unwanted pregnancies. Children are still being born to inexperienced and unprepared parents.  Proper parenting skills can prove to be more important than any subject taught presently taught in schools today.

This country, this society, this century should be more advanced than it is. Children are being sexually, mentally and emotionally abused at an alarming rate.  We are being neglectful of providing them the basic things they need to grow up to be productive, confident, emotionally and mentally stable human beings.  

It does not take a parent to figure out how to be a parent.  I am the first to confess that a child has never exited my womb.  You may scoff and ask what can I possibly contribute in the area of child rearing.  How can I know the real responsibilities of raising children?  How can I as a single woman write on such a subject since I never gave birth to a child? 

I could defend myself by attesting that I helped raise my brothers and sisters before and after my parents died.  It was a hell of a hard job.  Being a full time, for life, parent has got to be much harder.  However, it does not take a natural parent to tell what you should NEVER do to any child.  The first rule is DO NO HARM. 

I am not talking about the inevitable scolding and benign punishments done out of love and concern for the child’s safety, or even the infrequent and mild corporal punishments which I personally feel are unnecessary and can border on abuse.  What I am speaking about is CHILD ABUSE.

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