1. What you do matters. Whether it’s your health behaviors or the way you treat other people, your children are learning from what you do. “This is one of the most important principles,” Steinberg explains. “What you do makes a difference…Don’t just react on the spur of the moment. Ask yourself, What do I want to accomplish, and is this likely to produce that result?”
2. You cannot be too loving. “It is simply not possible to spoil a child with love,” Steinberg writes. “What we often think of as the product of spoiling a child is never the result of showing a child too much love. It is usually the consequence of giving a child things in place of love — things like leniency, lowered expectations, or material possessions.”
3. Be involved in your child’s life. “Being an involved parent takes time and is hard work, and it often means rethinking and rearranging your priorities. It frequently means sacrificing what you want to do for what your child needs to do. Be there mentally as well as physically.”
Being involved does not mean doing a child’s homework — or correcting it. “Homework is a tool for teachers to know whether the child is learning or not,” Steinberg says. “If you do the homework, you’re not letting the teacher know what the child is learning.”
4. Adapt your parenting to fit your child. Keep pace with your child’s development. Your child is growing up. Consider how age is affecting the child’s behavior.5. Establish and set rules. “If you don’t manage your child’s behavior when he is young, he will have a hard time learning how to manage himself when he is older and you aren’t around. Any time of the day or night, you should always be able to answer these three questions: Where is my child? Who is with my child? What is my child doing? The rules your child has learned from you are going to shape the rules he applies to himself.
“But you can’t micromanage your child,” Steinberg notes. “Once they’re in middle school, you need to let the child do their homework, make their own choices, and not intervene.”
6. Foster your child’s independence. “Setting limits helps your child develop a sense of self-control. Encouraging independence helps her develop a sense of self-direction. To be successful in life, she’s going to need both.”
It’s normal for children to push for autonomy, says Steinberg. “Many parents mistakenly equate their child’s independence with rebelliousness or disobedience. Children push for independence because it is part of human nature to want to feel in control rather than to feel controlled by someone else.”
