Varda Epstein did this story on Positive Parenting, quoting me and many other experts.
Being quoted is always an honor. But it also leaves us experts wanting to fill in our quote, wanting to tell readers the “all” of what we said.
The cool thing about having a Brainy Blog, is that I can tell you!
I encourage you to read the article written by Varda so that you’ll get answers from across the spectrum of experts on their positive parenting tips and thoughts.
Here, though, I’ll bring you mine. Following was my answer to the question: “Why is positive parenting important? Didn’t old-fashioned parenting techniques work just as well?”
My response:
Today there are a myriad of messages coming at hyper speed from a myriad of sources. They are marketing misery and dissatisfaction to children, who have poorly developed frontal lobes and no filters to separate truth from propaganda.
The speed and multi-modal aspect to this negative image building information causes a state of overwhelm that stops the brain from filtering and processing selectively./div>
Positive parenting is aimed at offsetting this very challenging situation. If done correctly it builds positive emotions and heightens self esteem in parent and child, not just the child.
One cannot look back at a different time and think that what was done then should be done now, only because it was done before. In many ways we could say that today’s challenges with violence and drug abuse are directly related to yesterday’s parenting. But whether that is true or not is irrelevant, since yesterday was a different world.
~Lynette Louise
aka The Brain Broad