Parenting

I'm currently taking a parenting course which has been really enlightening.  I've taken a number of child development and family dynamics courses but parenting has been really fascinating.  I get to raise a virtual child from birth to 18 years old.

Here's a few things I've learned so far:

Children watch approximately 3.04 hours of TV per day (Brooks 141).
Sexual content appears in 83% of popular adolescent TV shows (Brooks 144).
Children spend more time with media than in any other awake activity (Brooks 140).
16% of children are overweight (in comparison to 5% in 1980) (Brooks 136).
The best way to stop child whining is to ignore it (Brooks 160).
Boys are more likely to be spanked than girls (Brooks 162).
Spanking is now considered an ineffective form of discipline with over 300 extensive studies proving this (Brooks 161).

There are three R's to giving a child consequences:
1.  Related - it must be a consequence related to the problem behavior
2. Respectful - Do not humiliate the child, be respectful
3.  Reasonable - Have consequence be designed to teach, not to induce suffering

3 Examples of Healthy consequences:
1. Ignore (sulking, whining, pouting)
2. Social Disapproval - Speak firmly with a disapproved look on your face
3. Time Outs - 1 min per year of age, after the time out parents should make up with the child as an end to the consequence (Child 2 years old should only receive 1 minute timeouts)

I really really like this subject.  I see a lot of areas for improvement in the way I parent.

                                

Brooks, J.  (2011). The process of parenting (8^th ed.).  New York: McGraw-Hill.

ISBN: 9780073378763