Adventures in Parenting

Birth to Age 14
by National Institute of Health

Have you heard the latest advice about parenting?

Of course you have. From experts to other parents, people are always ready to give you parenting advice. Parenting tips, parents' survival guides, dos, don'ts, shoulds, and shouldn'ts - new ones come out every day.

But with so much information available, how can anyone figure out what really works? How do you know whose advice to follow? Isn't parenting just common sense anyway? How can the experts know what it's like to be a parent in a real house?

What's a parent to do?

Try RPM3 - a no-frills approach to parenting from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD).

For over 30 years, the NICHD has conducted and supported research in parenting and child development. We've talked to experts, parents, and children. We've collected statistics, identified myths, and tested suggestions. The result is RPM3.

Parents Do matter

The RPM3 guidelines aren't meant to be just another parenting "how to," telling you what to do. Instead, RPM3 separates the useful information from the not-so-useful so that you can make your own decisions about parenting. RPM3 does more than tell stories about what people think about parenting, it incorporates 30 years of NICHD research to tell you what really works.

RPM3 confirms something that you already know: parents do matter. You matter. Read on to find out just how much...

So where do we start?

The first thing you need to know is that there are no perfect parents. Parenting isn't all-or-nothing. Successes and mistakes are part of being a parent. Start to think about the type of parent you want to be. RPM3 offers research-based guidelines for being:

An effective parent. Your words and actions influence your child the way you want them to. You follow similar principles or practices in your words and actions.

A consistent parent. You follow similar principles or practices in your words and actions.

An active parent. You participate in your child's life.

An attentive parent. You pay attention to your child's life and observe what goes on.

By including responding, preventing, monitoring, mentoring, and modeling in your day-to-day parenting activities, you can become a more effective, consistent, active, and attentive parent.

Once you have learned about each RPM3 guideline, go to the section that describes your child's age to see how some parents use these guidelines in their everyday parenting. Think about steps you can take to use these guidelines and ideas in your own day-to-day parenting.

Being a more effective, consistent, active, and attentive parent is a choice that only you can make.

Keep in Mind ...

As you learn about the RPM3 guidelines and read the examples, remember that responding, preventing, monitoring, mentoring, and modeling have their place in parenting every child - including those children with special or different needs.

All children - be they mentally challenged, mentally gifted, physically challenged, physically gifted, or some combination of these - can benefit from the guidelines in RPM3. The children described in the booklet's examples might be in wheelchairs; they could have leukemia or asthma; they may take college level courses; or they might be in special classes for kids with attention deficit disorder.

The stories don't specifically mention these traits because all kids need day-to-day parenting, including those in special situations. The guidelines presented in RPM3 focus on how to handle day-to-day parenting choices, in which a child's abilities or disabilities are not the most important factors. The booklet's examples also apply to families of any culture, religion, living arrangement, economic status, and size. They address situations that all families experience, even if the specific family details are slightly different.

Let's begin by learning the lessons that RPM3 has to teach.

RPM3: How responding, preventing, monitoring, mentoring, and modeling can help you be a successful parent

Responding to your child in an appropriate manner

This guideline may seem obvious, but responding is more than just giving your child attention. The words are actually saying two different things: 1) make sure you're responding to your child, not reacting; and 2) make sure your response is appropriate, not overblown or out-of-proportion, too casual or minimal, or too late.

Are you reacting or responding to your child?

Many parents react to their children. That is, they answer with the first word, feeling, or action that comes to mind. It's a normal thing to do, especially with all the other things people do every day.

When you react, you aren't making a decision about what outcome you want from an event or action. Even more than that, if you react, you can't choose the best way to reach the outcome you want.

Responding to your child means that you take a moment to think about what is really going on before you speak, feel, or act. Responding is much harder than reacting because it takes more time and effort. The time that you take between looking at the event and acting, speaking, or feeling is vital to your relationship with your child. That time, whether it be a few seconds, five minutes, or a day or two, allows you to see things more clearly, in terms of what is happening right now and what you want to happen in the long-run.

About the Author

NIH is the nation's medical research agency - making important medical discoveries that improve health and save lives. The National Institutes of Health (NIH), a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting and supporting medical research.