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The Harvard Family Research Project defines responsive parenting as “the use of warm and accepting behaviors to respond to children’s needs and signals” (2012) and found such parenting behavior critical to a child's development. Becoming increasingly responsive as a parent requires not only an incredible dose of humility but a fullness of perspective. Largely, it requires attunement to and developmental scaffolding of your unique child.
That being said, here are seven principles that are consistently applicable to children of any age or temperament.
1. Show Love Without Conditions
First things first: Make sure, without a shadow of a doubt, that your children know that you love them unconditionally—that no matter what they do or how circumstances change, you love them. Providing unconditional love is a prerequisite to the success of rules, expectations, and all the rest.
I find there is always fantastic nuance in the linguistics of love. One child may feel highly connected when you provide a nurturing massage or listen to the story she just wrote. Another may feel more highly connected when you clean and organize with her or block her karate chop, swipe her legs out from under her, and tackle her to the ground. As it so happens, these are all true in my particular family.
When we show love in our child’s unique language, we maximize the impact of our affections and fortify a secure base. Be a scientist, and experiment to learn what fills your child’s bucket. Then multiply to infinity.
2. Order up Expectations, Sans the Egotism
Share your convictions firmly but without unnecessary rigidity. Remain open-minded, and share your thought process, even aspects of your own ambivalence. Your children will come to respect your authenticity and gain in cognitive and emotional depth. When you do choose to pick a battle, the credibility you may have gained in the process of compromising on non-essentials may be leveraged against a non-negotiable.
3. More Carrot, Less Stick
Catch your children doing the right thing, and do not miss opportunities to affirm a child’s acts of love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, faithfulness, and self-control. Cultivate virtue by feeding, watering, and lighting the growth of character and integrity.
Work hard to nurture your bond with them, and you may find yourself less on the proverbial parenting soapbox and less engaged in a punitive discipline.
My daughters are voracious readers and seem to go through a large stack of books from the library every couple of weeks, but they particularly love when my wife and I read through stories with them together. One year, after they were ready for bed, with toys neatly stowed, we read The Chronicles of Narnia together. We've also read the Harry Potter series together. Soon, we hope to begin working through The Wingfeather Saga.
4. Feed Connection, Starve Reaction
Your children want to know and to be connected with you, to know that you know them and want to be connected with them. It’s easy to miss this simple yet weighty truth as we grind out the day-to-day. Pour out affirmation and interest, and slow down your reactions to mistakes and misbehavior.
Confront your children about issues for which you find yourself curious or concerned. Have direct and open conversations. Prioritize relationship over reaction, connection over compliance.
Do not present yourself as aggressive or unmovable. Observe and respond to your children’s perceptions and perspectives. Do not just listen to yourself think and talk. Listen to them. Then, if necessary, remain resolute in clarifying limits and reassert your love.
5. Be Playful, Ditch the Digital
We live in a digital age. Whatever its virtues, it has waned our capacity for responsive attunement to our children’s tireless energies and budding desires. It is undeniable that learning, as well as bonding, best occurs when there is a significant component of play and reciprocal interaction.
One day, my daughters were restless for fun, so I turned a couple of couches on their side and engineered a magnificent tent with an assortment of rods, a ladder, blankets, pillows, and a string of lights. That tent stayed up for weeks and prompted our adventure into Narnia. They will remember this forever. More importantly, we've done it multiple times since.
6. Foster Wonder, Deter Gloom
We must teach our children how to think and feel, connect and create, and incite their wonder. We must find the time to attempt real answers to their insatiable questions and pose our own in return. Let us fearlessly lead our children into conversations about beauty and intimacy, purpose and death. Life itself is the essence of wonder.
We don’t teach our children how to play. An innate curiosity and creativity drive their imaginative masquerades into make-believe. Such creativity is a catalyst for competency. It deters boredom and gloom and promotes resilience. Yet many of us inhibit our children’s play, to their detriment.
7. Reward Competence, Discourage Vanity
Your children want to be awesome, just like you. Teach them everything you can about the world so they will gain insight, and teach them everything you can about how the world works so they will gain skill. Insight and skill are precursors to self-worth. Baseless praise is not. Neither is the praise of outer appearance.
That your daughter is a "pretty girl" is a distraction from her early promotion in swim class and success in cooking up scrambled eggs all by herself. Praise of externals risks an infusion of vanity. When we praise what they have genuinely done well, we excite self-worth and stir courage for more.
References
Landry, S. H., Smith, K. E., Swank, P. R., Zucker, T., Crawford, A. D., and Solari, E. F. (2012, March 15). The effects of a responsive parenting intervention on parent–child interactions during shared book reading. Developmental Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0026400. Retrieved from http://www.hfrp.org/family-involvement/publications-resources/the-effec…
