jaffincomp1projournart&diaryentexamples

Professional Journal Article Example:

**Abstract** This paper will clearly point out the positive attributes of effective parents. It also points out certain skills that parents must have to effectively shape their children’s behaviors. Effective parenting includes developing and clarifying clear expectations, staying calm in the midst of turmoil when your child gets upset, consistently follow through with positive and negative consequences, being a positive role model, role playing corrective behaviors and lastly, praising your child for his behavior. All these things are just beginning to be researched in depth, and this brief overview gives a sound basis for understanding the interesting relationship between parents and their children. **Introduction** Effective parenting has never been more important to a family’s success than today. Proper parenting shapes the coming generations, and the way the next generation will behave, affecting the world around them. History has taught us that parenting without a proper foundation has always and indefinitely lead to confusion for any developing child. That is why the attempt of trying to be a successful parent is so important and will be the most important job of one’s life. Knowing what healthy methods are best for one’s child during parenting is time consuming but a rewarding effort. **Developing and Clarifying Clear Communicative Expectations.** Before one concentrates his efforts on disciplining a child for misconduct, one must have a strategy, or game plan, for teaching their child how they are expected to behave (Christophersen, 2003, pg. 680). In addition, parents must model the appropriate behavior for their children if they want their children to be successful in their behavior, but that will be discussed later. First, developing clear expectation of what both parents want is the basis and the first steps to parenting. Depending on the background, or what is deemed as right and wrong, parents, within reason, should plan and communicate their expectation to each other. Creating a list of expectations (such as social, academic, religious, family oriented, personal appearance or hygiene) for different settings and activities will help parents be very specific and concrete in teaching their children (Burke, 1997, pg. 73). Some expectations are certainly more demanding than others; however, parents must take into consideration the child’s age, ability, developmental status, and resources that are available to the family (Burke, 1997, pg. 73). For example, expecting a four year old child to prepare dinner for the family and then punishing him for not meeting the expectations is very unreasonable due to his developmental status and age, as one can see. Ray Burke states, in his book, __Common Sense Parenting__, that one way to see if one’s expectations are reasonable is to answer these three questions: 1) Have you (as a parent) taught the expectation to your children, 2) Can your children clearly understand the expectations given, and 3) Can your children model and perform what you have expected (Burke, 1997, pg. 74-75). Clearly these three questions cover the majority of whether ones expectations for their child are realistic or not due to the child’s age and ability. Second, once both parents have set appropriate expectations and rules for their child, the next step is to communicate those expectations clearly to their child in word and in deed. One question to take into consideration is how one plans on communicating those expectations verbally (Burke, 1997, pg. 77). For example, if a child draws on the kitchen table, keeping the feedback positive and specific on what they should have done will have a clearer understanding of how he or she should perform in the future when confronted with a similar situation. Another question is how is one going to communicate those expectations through one’s behavior (Burke, 1997, pg. 77). By acting out the expectations that the parents have clearly stated to the child, the child will associate the “perfect model,” from the parents. Finally, another way of getting to express clear communicative expectations is to hold family meetings together. The family can set time out of the week to express what expectations are to be held within the family household, as well as going over any concerns or clarifications between both parents and the child. Doing this will only help improve the child’s behavior for the better not communicating expectations and then punishing one’s child can cause confusion, anger, and in sometimes spite in the child (Dodson, 1923, pg. 43).

Diary Entry Example:

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