Raising a happy and healthy Child is a one of the most challenging, yet the "only job" a parent should be successful at. Mostly it is fun, unless the parents don't know how to study how a kid's mind works. It is rightly said that "child is the father of man." Children are extremely intelligent and understand a lot more than an adult would think.
Hence, it's extremely important to be the ideal role model for your infant. Every word, sound, relationship, and action that your child observes is understood and processed by him/her. Normally, we tend to act according to our gut or behave the way our parents did with us.
The amount of independence, trust, affection, discipline you grant to your child, will form his/her behaviour for life. The Parenting technique that worked for you, might not work for your kid. Let's see what other techniques a parent can consider for their child to be content and happy in the long run:
Authoritarian
These are extremely strict and controlling. They strongly believe in discipline, obedience and clearly stated rules that they expect their child to follow, rigorously. The child is punished if the rules aren't followed. Such parents don't believe in reasoning, but for the child to blindly follow as stated. These parents are supremely demanding, and cause their child to have very low self-esteem, are timid, and discourage spontaneity.
Authoritative
These parents know the balance between making your child listen to you, while also granting them the independence to express and reason it out. While retaining their authority and control, they also have a warmer content with their child. Thus, the children are assertive, competitive, socially responsible and independent.
Researchers say that the best-adjusted children have been brought up by authoritative parents. Both the styles have high expectations for children, but the authoritative parents encourage freedom of expression.
Helicopter Parenting
Parents usually indulge in this style of parenting when the parents themselves have felt unloved in their own childhood, or when they're over-protective about their child's safety and future, or when they're not ready to take chances as they know their involvement in their child's activities will guarantee their child's success, or when they observe other over-involved parents and feel anxious.
Such parenting decreases the child's confidence and self-esteem, increase their anxiety, and their coping skills are generally underdeveloped.
Permissive
Permissive parents are affectionate and accepting, while they are hardly demanding. This can be caused because of the parents raised in a poverty-stricken environment, or because they didn't always get what they wished for from their parent. Thus, they make it their life-mission to provide all that the child asks for, without questioning whether it would be appropriate. They view their maturing child as an adult and try to be a pal to their child hardly behaving like a parent. This results in the child to be brash, snobbish, intolerant and unable to adjust.
Uninvolved
This style of parenting demands nothing and gives nothing except freedom, in return. This kind of freedom can verge on being neglect and is extremely unhealthy for the child.
Parenting is not to be taken lightly. As important as studying pregnancy and labour are, it is equally important to study parenting styles and to know which parenting style works best for your child, as the coping method of each child is different. It is also advantageous to have a session with your therapist or a child psychologist, to have an in-depth discussion regarding the same. Yes, it is true that you know your child best, but it is also true that taking advice from the experts will only help your child to be content and affectionate towards you, gradually.