Permissive Parenting
The ultimate goal for permissive parents is to show their child love and feel their love in return. They tend to avoid conflict at any cost. In a permissive household, discipline and limits are often missing.
These parents are highly bonded and connected to their children. In their belief, the key to the heart of their child is to relate to them as a peer instead of as a parent. Rules in this household are inconsistent if they do exist at all. When they need a child to act on a rule or expectation, most often the parent will use any means necessary including bribery, gifts, food and other motivators to gain for their child to comply.
Children need to have healthy limits and expectations. The kids need to learn appropriate behavior to function as a member of society. They also have to feel valued and cared for. Often, children of permissive parents suffer self-esteem loss because there is no one to ask about their grades in school or help them with homework.
Children feel like an important part of a functional unit – the family unit – when they are held to a higher standard. To be part of that functional family unit, they need structured activities like chores and routine bedtimes. In their desire to be everything to their children, permissive parents often times miss the boat entirely and have very little to offer that a peer at school can’t also fulfill.
Permissive parents are better off trying for a more balanced approach because this does not work. A healthy part of parenting is having love and affection but it becomes unhealthy if there is an unbalance of guidance and discipline.
Categories: Community, Family, News Tags: Parenting, Permissive
Gay Parenting
Openly gay couples who decide to become parents is still a new phenomena. Society has to catch up with this new trend. You may encounter hostility or suspicion if you’re parenting with a same-sex partner. You have to realize the importance of your unique situation. You can be an example that gay parents can make good parents and that gay families can be happy families.
In a recent report made by the American Psychological Association, they observed that “not a single study has found children of gay or lesbian parents to be disadvantaged in any significant effect relative to children of heterosexual parents.”
As a gay parent, you may wonder if you and your same-sex partner are depriving your child of an essential ingredient available only to children of “straight” parents. All the research to date suggests that the children of gay parents are at no significant disadvantage. Some of their findings are:
•Sexual orientation does not affect good parenting. It depends on ability of the parent to create a nurturing and loving, something both straight and gay parents can do.
•The children of gay parents grow up healthy, happy, and well-adjusted as the children of straight parents.
•There is no evidence to suggest that children of gay parents are less popular, less intelligent or more likely to have problems than children of straight parents.
•Children of gay parents are no more likely to become gay or straight than other children.
Gays and lesbians rarely become parents by accident, compared with an almost 50 percent accidental pregnancy rate among heterosexuals. It means that they have greater commitment on average and more involvement.
The children of gay parents show few differences in mental health, achievement, social functioning and other measures. They have the advantage of tolerance, open-mindedness and role models for impartial relationships.
Foster Parenting
Foster parents give a safe and temporary home for children who are in crisis. They become a part of the child’s care, treatment and support programs. They work together with the child’s social worker, doctors, teachers and attorney. It is not a passive act of opening one’s home and providing food, clothing, and shelter. It is a relationship where there is love, nurturing and advocacy.
The children who have been taken from their birth family homes for reasons of neglect, abuse, abandonment, or other issues endangering their health and/or safety need foster homes. These children are filled with confusion, a sense of powerlessness, anger, fear and confusion for having to leave the only home they have ever known. Some have emotional, physical, developmental or behavioral problems.
Financial support is offered by all states. The amount given is different for every state. You must be able to prove that without having to use any of the income from foster parenting, your current family needs can be met. Many states also offer day care, clothing and/or day camp allowances.
To become a foster parent, you need to have the following requirements:
•Must be at least 21 years old.
•You have enough bed and rooms in your home for a foster child to sleep and keep his or her belongings.
•Fire, safety, sanitary standards for your home should be met.
•Emotionally and physically capable of caring for children and have no drug or alcohol abuse problems.
•You must have no substantiated record of abusing or neglecting children and pass a criminal background check.
•You do not need to depend on the foster care reimbursement you receive from the state as income.
Related Resources:
Child Sponsorship
www.childrens-charities-hq.com