Parents are the most crucial figures in the lives of young children. Children rely on their parents to give them care. They need to be happy and healthy and to grow and develop properly. However, parents occasionally lack the knowledge and assistance necessary for effective parenting. There are many different forms of parenting. One of them is developmental parenting which supports child development by focusing on parent-child interactions.
What Is Developmental Parenting?
It is a style of parenting that respects a child’s development, fosters that development, and adapts to that development as the child does.
The core tenets of developmental parenting are warmth, responsiveness, encouragement, and communication – studies have shown these to result in the following essential outcomes in the early development of children – attachment, exploration, and communication.
The parent-child relationship has a substantial impact on much of the early development of children. The interactions between parents and kids foster the growth of social behaviors, language skills, and cognitive abilities in kids. Positive parent-child relationships allow kids to feel secure, explore confidently, and improve their communication skills. The skills that form the basis of social-emotional, cognitive, and linguistic growth. Because all three of these development domains support readiness for school, academic success, social competence, and mental health, these serve as the cornerstones of the outcomes that parents hope for their children.
Children benefit from feeling connected and close to their parents – they become more obedient and are less likely to misbehave. An infant learns to trust and develops a secure attachment to a parent through the parent’s responsiveness, which lays the groundwork for social and emotional growth and gives the infant a sense of security about being cared for and protected. Infants who are securely attached as they grow up are more sociable. They are better able to handle stress. Better able to maintain close relationships, and are more likely to become good parents compared to those infants who are not securely attached.
Understanding Developmental Parenting
In the early years of a child’s life, a parent responds to their actions and expressions in the context of interacting and conversing, such as taking an offered toy or responding to the child’s questions, and the child’s physical distress in the context of caregiving—by picking up a crying infant or feeding a hungry toddler.
An opportunity for the child to explore objects. How they function in the world can arise when a toddler offers a parent a toy or reaches for something they are not quite able to grasp, for instance. This can lay the groundwork for cognitive development.
The parent’s response to a young child’s curiosity gives the child a chance to use communication to learn, which lays the groundwork for language development and inspires further learning. A toddler learns to explore. Try new things, and develop new skills when a parent encourages them to do so and engages in play. A child practices communication skills. He learns new words and concepts when a parent asks questions, gives information, and engages in conversation with them. These parenting practices support the fundamental building blocks of a child’s development.
How To Facilitate Developmental Parenting?
Parents who want to provide developmental parenting to their children can benefit from support and encouragement. Practitioners can support parents in raising their children in a developmentally appropriate manner, despite challenging circumstances.
Focus on Parenting
Numerous infant and young child programs promote developmental parenting by sending in professionals. Often referred to as home visitors—to work with parents and their kids in their homes. The home visitors may be educators, disability experts, therapists, social workers, nurses, and other professionals. Practitioners meet with parents at a center or another location where parents take their young children to the neighborhood.
Parenting-focused Model
A common model that practitioners employ for developmental parenting is called the parenting-focused model or interaction-focused model. This model focuses on the interactions of the parent and the child to support the development of the child.
The practitioner utilizes regular family routines and assists the parent in determining how to enjoy the activity with the child and how to use the developmental parenting techniques they already use to advance the development of the child.
Additionally, the practitioner offers advice on how to interpret the child’s signals and respond to their needs, interests, and developing developmental skills.
Advantages of the Parenting-focused Model
- It conveys an inherent respect for the parent’s position as someone who can give their child positive developmental experiences even during trying times. Research has shown that parent-child interaction support children’s language, cognitive, and social-emotional growth. These areas of development are crucial to kids’ future academic and social success. The practitioner provides parents with the advice they need along with hands-on assistance and encouragement to improve their developmental interaction with their children.
- Parents must first feel confident in their capacity to offer those experiences. A parenting-focused model boosts the parent’s self-assurance, knowledge, and drive by emphasizing the parent as the person best suited to support the child’s development, building on the parent’s strengths, and cooperatively sharing expertise.
- As parents become more adept at giving their kids developmental opportunities, they will be able to more easily incorporate these opportunities into their regular family activities. A parenting-focused model ensures that supportive interactions and activities are likely to continue regularly even after the parenting program has ended by assisting parents in using everyday activities to provide developmental opportunities.
Parenting-focused Model Employs A Facilitative Approach
To effectively promote developmental parenting that supports early child development, parenting-focused models need a facilitative approach. Thus, parenting-focused models carry out the following actions:
- Provide services to parents first, then to children through parenting.
- Assist parents in keeping track of, encouraging, and adjusting to their kids’ development.
- Address the linguistic, cognitive, and social-emotional development foundations.
The Ending Note
Developmental parenting has been shown to support early childhood development. Without it, kids face a difficult time in school and run increased risks well into adulthood. A parenting-focused model will have a long-term effect on children’s development by promoting developmental parenting.
For practitioners using a facilitative approach to working with parents and their kids, maintaining a focus on parenting. Emphasizing parent-child interaction, and building on family strengths are challenging tasks.