Parenting is about everyday, every moment of upbringing of the kid...

This post is about the basics of parenting, in an attempt to answer the question - "What does it mean to be a good parent?" -

1. It's about being consistent on parents behavior, attitude, culture, outlook - at every moment / works of life.

2. It's the walking the talk, you cannot preach something to the kid that you do not follow. If you need the kid to brush his teeth in the night, show it by doing it yourself on a regular basis.

3. Exhibit good behaviors yourself, kids primarily learn by imitation & note even a single wrong / bad behavior shown by you can become a habit for the kid.

4. Learn yourself to be a good human being, caring, clean, healthy habit person - if you want to kid to be the same.

5. You cannot do all the bad things over a period of time & then try to fix in one or two weeks / months & start expecting the kid to change along with you. Once a kid is used to certain attitude / behavior it's hard to make them unlearn & learn new things.

6. I would stress further on previous point & say - there is nothing like, let me beak the rule few times myself, because I'm lazy to show by example & then we will fix it later - does not work that way... you may create the will power to change, but influencing that over to the kid will be difficult.

7. Parenting is about giving the love that your kid needs, whenever, where ever they demand - its not the other way, you cannot decide to get into your shell (because of your work or other issues) & decide to come back at later stage to show the love - the kid may not be open to take it at that stage

8. Golden first 5yrs - Kids brain grow to 90% of full capacity by the age of 5yrs & these 0 - 5yrs are the golden years that kid would learn the most, you need to ensure that a right foundation is given during these years

I will elaborate on each topics, areas in subsequent posts.

-Bhaskara