21 Parenting Tips and Skills

The top priority for a separated parent is to connect to your child. A strong, trusting and loving relationship is the foundation for special activities such as mentoring, teaching and laughing together.

You can achieve a close connection with limited time, though it's more difficult. If you have a choice, try for a visitation schedule where you see your children almost every day. Frequent contact, even just for short periods, helps to maintain closeness.

1. Be happy to see your child

Tip 1 is to be happy when you see your child after a break. When it is obvious to your child that you are happy to see them, they feel special and will be happy to see you as well. You shouldn't have to fake it. Just be sure to show it.

• Smiling when you greet your child makes them feel good and relaxed about changeovers.
• Your child knows for sure that they will be arriving at a welcoming place where they are valued and loved.

2. Catch up

A good practice is to talk to your child for around 10 minutes or so when you first see them (no distractions). If they're old enough, ask what's been happening, how they're going with different things, if they have any interesting stories. If you do this consistently, they'll get used to it, do it without you having to ask, and will have things ready to say. It's a fantastic habit for staying connected while developing their social skills.

3. Give hugs

Hugs and cuddles are important for bonding and helping children to feel secure. They need it less (and probably want it less) as they get older but it's a good habit to keep up. For example, with an older child, you could at least give them a hug each time you are saying goodbye and won't be seeing them for a while.

No amount of 'parenting skills' can make up for the lack of a close parent-child relationship. Kids accept our guidance because of who we are to them. Without that relationship, it’s very hard to parent. A close bond not only makes our kids want to please us, it gives us access to our natural parenting know-how... A strong relationship with you helps him to love himself, which is the foundation of mental health and happiness; and to love others, which is the foundation of future fulfilling relationships. Kids whose emotional needs are met express the traits and values we all want in our kids: consideration and respect for others, self-confidence, integrity, self-discipline. And study after study shows that a close relationship with parents protects children from the excesses of the culture and the peer group.

Tips for Shared Activities

Doing fun activities with your children breaks you out of the parent mould and allows you to get to know them on a more equal level. They can learn how you go about things and pick up useful skills.

4. Play cricket (or another sport)

Cricket is a fantastic game for parents and children of all ages (except babies of course). Kids usually love it after they've learned the basic rules and know how to hold a bat or throw a ball. Backyard cricket gets children outside and into every corner of the garden. They learn about rules, taking turns, winning and losing, and being fair. They also gain physical skills and confidence. If cricket is not the go, some alternatives are soccer, tennis and basketball.

5. Play indoor games together

There are plenty of indoor games that adults and children can play together. Kids can learn a lot from you if you're prepared to sit down with them and play structured games such as scrabble, card games, computer games, connect 4 or monopoly. For younger children, you may need to find your inner child and immerse yourself in imaginative games involving blocks, dinosaurs and alike.

Many of those who are brave enough to admit that they hate to play with their children (or at least that they sometimes don’t like it) have learned from the experts that they aren’t supposed to dominate the play and should allow the child to take the lead. But they go too far with this idea... If you want to play with your child, be sure to find ways to do so that are fun for you as well as your child. It should be a joy, not a duty.

Communication Skills

One of the most important skill areas for your children is communication and literacy. Telling stories and reading with your children are fantastic activities for cognitive development.

6. Tell stories

A great way to build rapport with your children and stimulate their minds is to tell stories. You can recount interesting tales from your past. You can tell them about what is happening in the world or in your work or personal life. For little ones, you can even make up stories instead of reading to them when you put them to bed at night. Kids are naturally fascinated by storytelling and will absorb what you say if you make it interesting for a young mind.

7. Read stories

From an early age until they become proficient readers, an important parenting activity is reading to your children. It is good for bonding, stimulating their minds, imparting knowledge, building verbal skills and developing literacy skills. You should be able to find some quiet time most evenings to read with your children and have them read to you.

Melbourne researchers have proven what parents have intuitively known all along – the more often you read to your children from an early age, the greater the positive effect on their reading and thinking skills.

The Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research has not only proven a causal effect between the frequency of reading to a child and his or her development, but have also for the first time measured the benefits.

Children 4 to 5 years old who are read to 3-5 times a week have the same reading ability as children 6 months older (who are read to only twice or less a week). Reading to children 6-7 days a week puts them almost a year ahead.

Discipline Skills

Disciplining your children is one of the trickier areas of parenting and requires multiple skills. It's even harder for a separated parent. You need to be reasonably consistent with the other parent's approach even though you don't live with them and see what they are doing. You also have to balance the need to be firm with your children against the costs. Becoming the "bad parent" is a risk, especially if you have limited contact time.

8. Set boundaries

A good general strategy for disciplining your children is to set firm boundaries for their behaviour. Make it clear that certain things are unacceptable and will be addressed any time they ever happen. These might be things such as hurting a sibling, doing dangerous things, ignoring requests from you or lying.

Your response when your child breaks the rules depends on their personality, age and relationship with you. Physical punishment or yelling can be effective in certain situations (there's a reason why such responses are innate to human beings) but there is something wrong if you are hitting or screaming at your children repeatedly. Talking about their behaviour or taking away something (such as pocket money or TV time) works provided your child is calm and listening.

A very important way to show your children love is to have clear, defined limitations for them. Your kids want guidelines for their lives that are reliably enforced. You are the one who creates a safe environment for them. Setting boundaries is an important piece of parenting. It doesn’t mean they won’t push your boundaries, they will. It is a part of their learning process and they may even be upset when you uphold certain boundaries, but they will also feel safe and secure at the same time.

Nurturing Tips

Letting children be themselves is good for them and helps them feel like your place is very much their home too.

9. Let them play

Lots of things can go wrong when children are allowed to play with limited supervision and few rules. But that's part of the point of play; to learn what can go wrong. Give your children freedom to make decisions and mistakes. You should find that children are actually quite good at assessing risks when they feel responsible for the consequences of their actions.

10. Let them be messy

A messy office desk has been found to be good for creativity and even productivity (depending on how messy). The same principles apply with children's play. Cleaning up all the time and not allowing mess inhibits their imagination and the games they make up. Leaving toys out is especially valuable when your children don't live with you permanently. They feel more at home by being able to continue the games they were playing last time they visited.

11. Offer choices

Gradually giving children more and more autonomy helps them grow and become independent. Choice is important when children are moving between households. As a separated parent, you don't know exactly how the children are feeling or what they've been doing. Give them opportunities to make decisions about meals, activities and TV shows. It helps smooth out bumps from living in a shared parenting arrangement.

Spending Time Together

For separated parents especially, you want to make full use of the time you have with your kids. But what about when you and/or the kids are tired and want to chill out? Watching TV or a movie together is an easy option. It is recommended that you have one TV and find things to watch together.

12. Watch documentaries

Children are often interested in watching documentaries (such as nature shows) and reality TV. Such shows also can be very good for them because they are learning about the real world. Fortunately, there's plenty of overlap between documentaries that interest children and those which are watchable for adults.

13. Watch comedies

Perhaps the best shows to watch with your children are those ones that you all find funny and entertaining on some level. Laughing together and developing a shared sense of humour are fantastic for bonding and mutual understanding.

Educating Children

Educating your children in an academic sense is important these days. The primary school curriculum is crowded and some basic literacy and numeracy skills are quite neglected. Teaching / tutoring your children helps them to go better at school. It also reinforces to them that you consider education is a priority. It is normally possible to find some time each afternoon or evening when your child is alert and can do 10-20 minutes of extra academic learning.

14. Teach English skills

Succeeding at school critically depends on a child's ability to read fluently, construct sentences and write legibly. The process for developing these skills starts long before your child attends school and never really stops. As well as reading with your children, you can do things such as: use flashcards to teach letters and sounds, give writing or drawing exercises, and use language training software.

15. Teach maths skills

A good grasp of mathematics will make school-life for your children easier and lead to greater career opportunities. Number training can be game based, including board games and maths software. It's also easy to find and print out maths exercises.

It wasn’t until I removed myself from the vortex of a system that measures success by grade point averages that I began to truly understand the goals of instruction. I’m not here to tell you to pull your kids out of the educational system and home-school them. That is my personal choice. But I do want to encourage you to be very hands-on with your kids’ education. I believe parents make the best teachers because we love and know our kids best.

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