Raising children
It is a fact that raising children is not as easy as it seems. This is because, many times, parents are overwhelmed by the scarcity of time to monitor and guide their young ones, imbalanced life, and also lack of emotional bonding with their kids. In an attempt to ensure that children become valuable individuals to themselves and society, some parents have resulted to become child’s disciplinarian while others opt to be their child’s best friend. Despite the differences, each of these parenting styles aims to ensure children get their best. Considering the role of parents in a child’s life, choosing to become the child’s best friend would create a conducive environment for the parents to offer positive mentorship to their children.
Being the child’s best friend provides an opportunity for the parents to offer inductive discipline. Due to the close parents-children relationship, parents would have the chance to explain in detail the reasons for some rules as well as the moral and social consequences for engaging in bad behaviors. Moreover, friendly parents tend to have more influence over their children. On the other hand, children from very strict parents may take their parent’s actions as punishment and as a result, try to revolt against them as they grow up. A close relationship between parents and their children also enables parents to build trust in their children thereby opening a room for open communication. Once there exists open communication parents can give timely advice and also educate their kids on how best to handle issues at different stages of life.
Additionally, being a child’s best friend means that the children will enjoy spending a lot of time with the parents and consequently, learn from them how best to have effective interaction with adults. Children who are close to their parents are also likelier to experiment with what is their mind compared to those children whose parents are total disciplinarians. It is therefore evident that parents who act as their children’s best friend offer them an opportunity to learn more about life and also try experimenting with what is in their mind and hence make is the best option for parenting.