Parenting challenges can wrack the kids’ childhood and your happy life if not dealt with on time. Still, no doubt that kids have the power to switch the boring home life into a wonderland. However, parenting can be challenging when the outer and inner circumstances affect your relationship with kids. Sometimes, time management gives you tough parenting, and sometimes, other people keep indulging themselves in your plan.
Most of the time, parenting is tough due to the high load of work life and kids’ attraction towards the bad stuff. Additionally, it becomes worse when it remains untreated or is not recognized by the parents at the initial stage.
Parenting adds wonderful experiences in your life, but it comes with huge responsibilities and duties. Here are the significant parenting challenges that might occur in your life that you need to acknowledge and solve them.
1. Lack Of Communication
Communication is a core ingredient to keep the relationship healthy between parents and kids. However, parenting can be challenging if communication ability drops to negative.
As a parent, I found it hard to communicate with my kids in a limited time. First, I have to spend eight hours at the office, and then I have household chores. That takes twelve to fourteen hours of my day and leaves little time for me to talk to my kids.
One day, I asked my toddler how his day at school (preschool) was. I got “Nothing” in reply. That was a little upsetting, but I chose not to expand my curiosity further due to less time. However, the repetition of the event made us think about whether ignorance is the right choice or whether it is a parenting challenge we must deal with. Indeed, it was a challenge.
A few red signs highlight the lack of communication that you need to acknowledge immediately.
- Short and ignorant replies from toddlers or preschoolers (2 to 5 years) and school-age children (6 to 12 years).
- Vague and aggressive replies from adolescents (13 to 18 years).
- Stubbornness for material things in young children.
- Non-Compliance, even when they should talk about it.
These things reflect that you lack communication with your kid and need to deal with it. If you don’t take action, then lack of communication causes these things in your children in the future.
How Does Lack Of Communication Affect A Child?
Lack of communication will make your kid an extreme introvert, develop low self-esteem, lose individuality, and struggle to move in society. Parenting can be challenging when met with these extreme future predictions. So, how are you going to deal with it?
How Can You Improve Communication Between Parents And Children?
Here are a few tips that will help you to break down your hardship in parenting:
- Instead of a broad question, ask about a specific thing. For instance, ask about what they have eaten or whether they had lunch with their friends. Instead of “how was your day.”
- Sometimes, it’s better to listen to them instead of giving them your piece of advice. It worked competently for me and will work for you as well.
- Involve them with you in household chores (not too much, but for little things). And keep them engaged with you in small talk.
2. Development Concerns
Parenting can be challenging when you come to know that you have to teach high moral values to your kid. It is not as easy as it seems to you in a high-tech and social media world. Even a study shows that the parents were worried that they don’t have enough time to teach a good lesson to their children in little time.
If the child doesn’t receive moral lessons from the parents or guardians that will cause negative behavior of the child in school and at home, and will show Inflexibility/Tenacity for the desires or Id. In the future, these traits will become stronger and become part of their personality. That’s why people say that parenting can be difficult.
How To Deal With The Development Concerns Of Your Child?
To handle my hardship in parenting, I read bedtime stories with moral lessons. Give them exposure to ethical values by performing them in front of them. For instance, give charity and express the emotion of kindness to your kid, so they understand it. Ask the teacher or caretaker to involve your kids in moral-based activities. That’s how you can deal with the hardship in parenting.
3. Time Management
Undoubtedly, parenting can be challenging when it comes to time management between your work life, housekeeping, friends time, and family time. (In these roles and duties, sometimes we forget to give time to ourselves).
Research shows that the parents are concerned that their children might develop low competency due to the less time they spend with their children. Undoubtedly, spending more time with your kid will boost their knowledge and enhance their social skills and abilities.
In our mechanical life, it has become a significant parenting challenge and also been reported in various research that time management for kids is not easy.
4. Anti-Social And Language Delay
It is odd that a toddler or school-age child starts spending more time in their room or the side corner of the living room rather than with you. Parenting is tough when it meets the antisocial behavior of the child. What is it, and how can we identify it?
Language is the main principle that helps the child to communicate with the parents. However, if the child is experiencing language delay, it will be hard for the child to comprehend the parents, resulting in antisocial behavior.
It is neither a disease nor a psychological problem. But some children take more time to develop language ability compared to others. Parenting can be challenging when they need to make an antisocial child into a sociable one.
When I saw this challenge in one of my kids (at an early age), I started inviting his friend at home and involved them in different activities. That ignited his interest in his friends, and he became more active.
5. Child Power Struggle
We face power struggles every day in our workplace. However, parenting can be challenging when we see a “child power struggle” in our homes. “Child power struggle” arises in your home due to two primary reasons.
Firstly, you are “enraging instead of engaging” them in different tasks. Kids learn from their parents; if you are making them do things by speaking loudly and using angry emotions, they will imitate you. That is how the struggle starts.
Secondly, the conflict with your kid on the same subject will ignite the “child power struggle.” For instance, your child wants possession of a material thing, and you don’t want your kid to have it. You will say “NO,” and he will argue “Yes,” and that’s how it becomes your parenting challenge to deal with.
The best way to deal with this challenge is to use the method of “redirection.” The study shows that “redirection” helps many parents to deal with their child’s stubbornness, conflict, and tenacity. You simply have to divert the topic very carefully by asking questions about something else or start talking about your kid’s favorite subjects.
Parenting can be challenging when you need to remain calm even if your child wins the argument and leaves you in a child power struggle. For this purpose, I always use my pillow for my outburst. Best meditation for parents.
6. Emotional Outburst
As humans, we experience many emotions, such as sadness, anger, guilt, disgust, shame, and many others. Parenting can be challenging when your emotional outburst affects and disturbs your home tranquility.
Emotional Outburst – Fear
Parenting is tough when you need to keep the outburst of your fear under control. Fear in parenting? Sounds familiar? It happens to me at every celebration.
People like your friends, in-laws, and distant relatives will keep telling you that your child rearing is wrong. They will fill you with fear, and you will start doubting your parenting plan. That fear will not only affect your family but also affect your health.
In that case, you can do nothing but listen to them calmly. However, never let their words eat you up. Pay no heed to their suggestions and keep following your plan. Because as a parent, I know that no one can think about your child like you do. No one can beat your affection and concerns.
Emotional Outburst – Anger
Parenting can be challenging when your child encounters your anger. The most dangerous and effective element defines your child’s sentiments and behavior. Anger or aggression is not only defined as an emotion but also a personality trait.
Your aggressive behavior will either cause fear in the child’s mind or will result in anger in your child. In both scenarios, you have to divert your emotion. To deal with this challenge, try taking a deep breath and see the wonders around you. Moreover, you can also try some new exercises or yoga and ensure that you won’t lose your temper in front of your kid.
Emotional Outburst – Sadness
Indeed, parenthood is a great experience and has many stages, including happiness and sadness. Yes, we all come across the emotion of sadness in a certain stage, it is not lasting, but it hurts.
Parenting can be challenging when encountering a child’s aggressive behavior and rude words. There’s no way that you can undo the pain caused by their words. However, the best way to deal with this challenge is to keep yourself reminded that they don’t mean it. They don’t even understand the meaning and effects of their words.
As a parent, I know it is not easy to cope with the emotion of sadness. Many things come into mind: I’m working 24/7 for them, they don’t respect me, and many other things. Don’t let those thoughts monitor your behavior or let them lead your future.
It is the most common challenge that parents have to deal with. The point will come when your kids will start understanding the meaning of their words and revert from it.
7. Bond With Your Children
Indeed, it is significant to create a strong bond with your children, and it is also a parenting challenge. It is not easy to create a link with kids. It takes time and requires some effort. To have the trust of your child, you have to make a connection.
Sometimes, kids don’t discuss their fears or doubts because they don’t feel any special bond with you. That can lead to any bad situation as well. I believe parents should be the closest person in the child’s heart.
I created a strong bond with my kids by reading their favorite books. I also bought some coloring books to make our time valuable and memorable. Doing this activity with my kids seems to be filling my life with more colors and removing the black and white from my home.
8. Balancing In All Kids
Having more than one kid is always troublesome; nothing is enough for them. They always want more, specifically love and attention. It is a significant parenting challenge to create a balance between all kids.
For this purpose, divide everything equally among all your children. For instance, talk to each child at mealtime, listen to their stories and give them equal time. Similarly, divide the TV time equally among all of them. I know it is the worst challenge when it comes to TV conflict.
More importantly, never support your one child against another. Parenting can be difficult when you need to handle the conflict between the two kids. It never ends in peace. However, with all these troubles, parenting gives you a heavenly experience by watching their first step, first word. Everything related to them brings nothing but more joy to your life.
Final Thoughts
In our contemporary world, advancements in technology and social networks increase more threats to the child’s upbringing. The above-mentioned parenting challenges can reach the worst scenarios if the child has been given vast exposure to the internet. No doubt, the internet is the best source to get helpful information in a bit of time, but it also affects the health and behavior of the child.
Parenting can be difficult when it comes to the child’s success. However, the challenge is not to burden the kids with the extra study hours. It is understood that all parents want their kids to be successful, productive, and creative. However, every child has limited stamina to bear the load of the work. The workload will affect your child’s health, and good health is the first priority when it comes to our children’s care.
