Would you share some examples of really good parenting that you've observed?

A family I know is divorced.
At the holiday celebration at the dad’s house, Santa left a gift card and a note telling the little girl to get manicures with her mom (not her new stepmom) at a local fancy spa.
I thought it was so awesome that the dad is fostering a great relationship between the daughter and mom and is treating his ex (who is also a great parent) to a spa service.
I thought it was an amazing dad move.

Wow…..

I have a rule that I only say something twice. If they still don’t follow my instructions, I will come over and make them do it. They hate when I get up. When they were very little, I would always say “Come in”, and immediately go over and pick them up and give them a kiss. They quickly learned to come right away. I hate yelling and almost never have to.

When my three grandsons were at a motel, I saw some parents tell their kids over and over to get out, and the father said “If you don’t get out right now, I’m coming in and get you”, then continue to say get out over and over.

I told my boys it’s time to go inside now, and all three of them came right out. They have always been a pleasure to be with. Like the woman in the example, I enjoy discovering things with children, and we have a lot of fun.

Walking a mile takes me about 20 minutes, but with the boys it takes about an hour. We stop and look at 100’s of interesting things along the way.

I don’t like judging parenting because as a parent it is one of the hardest jobs you could take on and IMO, the best parenting is what works for you and your kids.

But since I am always full of opinions, I will share my observations of what I have seen that I would label as “good parenting”. Overall the best behaved kids I have seen have parents with high levels of self control. I also have observed “good parents” keep their expectations age appropriate. You can’t expect kids especially younger ones to always be in control of their emotions and behaviors. Good parents anticipate this and have other options and strategies at the ready.

Also I have seen good parents get down to their child’s eye level to give directions in calm, clear simple terms and with 1 or 2 limited options. Good parenting often means making the difficult and often unpopular decisions for their children. But most good parents are just that parents and not their child’s friend.

It’s so much harder to come up with examples of good parenting rather than bad parenting – we have a couple that we’re friends with and their son is a great little kid…they let his imagination run free: he gets to pick out his own craziest outfits (and they don’t gender his wardrobe so he may end up wearing some leg warmers, a tutu and a helmet), they build weird contraptions for him to live in all the time (forts and castles) and make sure he’s really in sync with all the other members of their family like his grandmother and aunt and others. I think he’s going to grow up incredibly open minded and will soar. As Thoreau said “All good things are wild and free” – that’s how I think of that family.

My daughters impress me. If the kids have to spend a moment in the naughty corner, they are so consistent about talking to them when they come out. They have taught the kids to apologize and then (the step I forgot as a patent) always hug them and say “I forgive you.” When the kids get into their little fights, they guide them through the apology AND the forgiveness.
I wish I had remembered to activly teach my kids to forgive. (Although it appears they learned it somewhere along the way in spite of me.)

Our kids learned a lot of really great things @Judi, in spite of us!!

A woman reminding her child she wanted an answer to her question, not an explanation and that the two are very different and don’t always go well together.

I like the idea of finding the balance between being a helicopter (micromanager) and a satellite parent (uninvolved).

From http://www.helium.com/items/210571-blue-angel-parenting

“Helicopter parents are overly involved and overly concerned. They justify their need to constantly monitor their child’s every activity with their fears about safety, accidents and injury. Believing that good parenting means preventing failure and mistakes, these parents try to anticipate every move their child makes. They frequently overschedule their child in the belief that most of the day should be spent in formal instruction or lessons. They fear their child will not use every minute of every day productively.

Satellite parents are too permissive and feel that discipline is wrong or that kids should be free to do their own thing. Their children often feel abandoned or unimportant.

Optimal parenting requires flexibility, constant course correction and coordination.”

I was in Red Lobster once and there was a chatty little kid in there, about 3, with his Dad. They had a tank of lobsters up front where we were waiting. The lobsters had colored rubber bands around their claws. Kid, non stop with the “why” questions says, “Why do some of the lobsters have blue rubber bands and some have red rubber bands?”
Without missing a beat dad says, “Because some are girls and some are boys!” I LOL’d, and that was a long time ago when we hadn’t heard of “LOL!”