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 (Highly recommend) (Highly recommend) (Highly recommend) (Highly recommend) (Highly recommend) 4.63 (Highly recommend) from 18 votes (445 Visits)

What good parenting advice is.

Anonymous Author (January 2007)

It's anything a parent might find useful.  That might seem like a simple enough answer, but I have noticed a lot of comments about advice on this site being irrelevant to parenting.  I'm going to list all the things that I see as being relevant advice to me, as a parent ,and why it's relevant.

Advice on caring for children.  Everything from breastfeeding and nappy changes, to explaining the birds and the bees and dealing with children leaving the nest.  I think this is important because a functioning reproductive system is the only qualification anyone needs to be a parent, and there is so much more to know and learn.

Advice on anything that can save money.  Anything at all that can save us money gives us money to invest in better caring for our children.  Be it extra tutoring for school, a trip to the zoo, sports fees, better food, or a little bit more pocket money for the kids, every penny counts when you are a parent.

Advice on anything with how to improve interpersonal relationships.  Whether is resolving conflict, trying to negotiate a home loan, communicating better with your family members, or explaining social expectations to our children, these are things that are learned.  It's not instinct to stay calm and polite when someone is screaming torrents of verbal abuse at you, but it's still the best way to deal with such a situation - and not everyone knows that.  If we as parents don't know it, how can we teach our children?  If we are to give our children the best start to life, we need to give them the best possible skills for interacting with the outside world, and we can't do that unless we have learned how to do it first.

Advice on housework and odd jobs around the house.  As parents, it is our responsibility to ensure that our children have a clean, healthy, safe, and functional home to live in.  When we can't afford an electrician to fix a powerpoint that is in our child's reach, we need to know something we can do to make it safe, without having to go without electricity in the rest of the house, until we can afford an electrician.  This sort of knowledge not only allows us to better look after our family in general, but it can keep our family safe from illness and injury.

Advice about pets.  Most families don't just have children, they also have pets.  If they don't, eventually a child will bring a pet home at some point, even if they aren't allowed to keep it.  Anything from cats & dogs, to lizards & frogs.  If a parent is going to teach their children how to deal with animals, they have to know how themselves.  If they are going to keep their children's pets safe and healthy, they need this advice.  It's just another part of parental responsibility.

Advice relating to activities and hobbies.  Parents the world over share activities and hobbies with their children.  Be it knitting clothes or making toys for their children, to playing games with their children, or coaching their children's sports team, we pass on the skills and knowledge we have and our children benefit in many ways.

Advice pertaining to medical, legal, financial, and other such specialized services.  Without such information, we can easily become lost and even get ourselves into a lot of trouble - which impacts on our children.  We want to keep our own lives in proper order so that we can do our best for our children, and information about these types of things is definately useful for parents to know.

Advice relating to parents and/or their children gaining and maintaining employment and education.  Anything we can do to better ourselves and our lives improves the lives of our children if we do it right.  And of course what parent wouldn't want to know how these things effect our children?

Advice pertaining to the Minti site.  Of course, how to use and contribute to this web site can improve our chances of learning the things that we, as parents, need to know.

This covers a lot of ground.  Everything we know and learn, we can teach our children.  Knowledge is priceless.  Use it, share it around, and don't condemn something that you feel is irrelevant to parenting just because it isn't relative specifically to you.  There are many parents out there that need to know about some things that may seem pretty obscure, but they could do their jobs as parents better if they were armed with that "irrelevant" information.

So, MINTI PARENTS UNITE, FIND THINGS TO WRITE, GIVE US INFORMATION, IMPROVE OUR EDUCATION!

Hehehe!  Anyone got some pompoms?

Any contributed content above is the subjective opinion of that member or external author, and not of Minti.com Pty Ltd. If you are searching for health related advice we strongly suggest you seek professional medical support. View our Terms of Service for more details.

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ADVICE RATING
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OzBinky
5.00 (Excellent) | January 2007 | OzBinky
Ok, so here is a place for all subjects except straight out parenting advice
For anything that isn't parenting but important to you, have a go at the 'Junk Box'


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Marguerite
5.00 (Excellent) | January 2007 | Marguerite
Here Here
I agree with Wendigo entirely and i think the point she makes is critical.  I heard parenting described once as "the full catastrophe".  i wish I could remember where I read that so I could refer you further but I can't.  Parenting is the "full catastrophe" and it involves all of the areas that Wendigo mentioned - each being as important as the other. On top of the list already provided I would add "advice on how to be good to yourself, value yourself, take pride in yourself" etc because often when we become parents and we are confronted iwth the newness of it all and are shocked by how gargantuan the change in our lives actually becomes,  the biggest blow can be to our self-esteems.  And, as Dr. Phil says: "if mama aint happy aint nobody happy!" (yes, I am an out of the closet Dr. Phil fan). 


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OzBinky
5.00 (Excellent) | January 2007 | OzBinky
To add to this....
I understand what you are saying but I think it is alsoimportant to mention minti's objective which is to be like no other site. So many other parenting sites focus on many subjects besides parenting and in turn get off track on to subjects that, although are great, take aim away from providing information for parents to better their life and their children's.

I'm cutting and pasting from Rachel's blog here but she states that The Minti site is dedicated to allowing parents to publish an article providing that it is Parenting or Family Advice that aims to help parents with the raising of children.This is what makes Minti unique.

The other thing I guess is that minti offers blogs in which you can post other things, groups you can create to talk about stuff that can make life easier and better but non related to parenting issues as such.

I know a few people feel that they are getting shut down on opinions, advice and comments about thing the feel are important but that is really what our blogs, groups and lounges are for. I get now why this is so and although I didn't to begin with, I can see the benefits.



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MadMel
4.00 (Good) | January 2007 | MadMel
YES!
Thank you for writing this. I was sort of knocked down a level when somone said it was about parenting not other stuff. I know I love to read about other interesting and helpful info like you have said up top ^^
Great article. Thanks


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bellachell
4.46 (Good) | January 2007 | bellachell
I AGREE
I have often come accross advice not specifically pertaining to parenting and found that they either have a low rating or people have left comments about how this advice is not meant for this section of minti. Parenting isn't just about kids, it's about our whole world in which we live in. We can't be proper parents if we're too worried all the time about everything else going on. Well done on this article and I hope it really gets acknowledged.


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