5 New Age Parenting Rules that I Follow

Parenting has been changing a lot from generations to generations. The main point is the safety of the children, which is same across the generations. But we, as parents are seeking effective ways to give the best to our children.

This generation parents have the luxury of learning more information about different types of parenting and tips through the internet and also get the advice from previous generations. While a few pieces of advice work or not, we learn a lot on this journey.

That’s how this post came into my mind. With my experience, learning from elders, friends and researching through the internet I have adopted some parenting rules. Here are a few:

1. Being Active With Kids 

Nowadays, parents are as active as kids and are spending more time with them. I think, one of the best gifts that we can give our children is our time and many parents started implementing that. I am always physically active whole day even when I was working and also now when I am a stay at home mom.

I enjoy reading books to them, watching animation movies, making crafts together with kids and taking them to the library and many social events and play dates. Our children have more toys and tools to play with when compared to our generation.

I really appreciate them playing with building blocks/ legos with their imagination knowing no boundaries. I join the fun whenever I can.

Being active with kids and spending more time is beneficial to both me and kids as I get to teach them well while participating in their fun activities. I also get more bonding time with them.

2. Encouraging Imagination

In our childhood, there was much focus on academics. But, in this generation, I feel, there should be more focus on individual thinking, decision making, and imagination. I make it a rule to let my kids explore new things and think creatively. Encouraging imagination will develop creative skills.

Gifting kitchen sets, tool sets, car repair sets, doctor sets are very useful in encouraging their imagination. My kids build anything that they see outside with legos and building blocks like a cable car they saw on their last vacation or a snowmobile they tried once. There is really no limit on what children can imagine and be able to construct them.

3. Making Screen time effective

Don’t get me wrong when I say TV is not an idiot box. That was an old saying. But, since we have smart TVs at most of our homes, if used effectively, TV is not that bad. So, instead of restricting screen time, we make it useful. We reduced watching cartoons and started watching documentaries on how cars are made, how things work, how food is made etc.

We also watch travel documentaries to know about different places and cultures. Watching ‘Food Factory’ episodes helped my children to understand that food goes through a lot of processes before coming to our table.

This helped me to teach my kids not to waste food and also to teach them about health benefits of a few food items. Since ours is smart TV, we also watch Youtube channels of science videos for kids and how to videos on crafts and arts.

4. More Outdoor Play

I think this is the parenting rule that I am taking back from our childhood. We used to play at least an hour after school in the evening. Cycling, playing hide and seek, tag, and play, tossing the ball, Biking, skateboarding, swimming etc., – we have a lot of options for outdoor play if weather permits.

This brings children close to their friends and they will know the importance of being gentle and sharing with others. Unfortunately, the weather doesn’t permit all the time here to play outside due to snow and cool conditions. So, We utilize the Spring and summer to maximum to cover up.

5. Not being over-protective

I see that this generation parents are over-protective about their kids. I supervise my kids when they play/ run or do anything, but I don’t run to stop them doing something. I just guide and I am ok if they fail. My responsibility is only to encourage them to keep going and learning from failures but not protecting them completely from failures.

If we are not teaching responsibility to our kids and micromanaging/organizing everything for them ahead, it leads them to failure in the future. Parents might not live long to be with children all the time and so, our responsibility for our children is to make them self-reliant. I feel it is better to make our children aware of the harsh realities of the current world than keeping them safe in a bubble.

What are your new age parenting rules? What rules work for you? Do let me know in comments.

  Mahathi Ramya is a mom of 2 boys, a blogger, software testing professional and a classical dance teacher. She writes on books, travel, and parenting. She loves writing, traveling and painting a lot.