Parenting

Parenting is the process of raising and educating a child from birth until adulthood.

It has recently become a very popular topic due to the necessity of clarifying the process of upbringing a child at home by parents as the opposite to the formal education of a child at school. A teacher-student relationship is different than the parent-child relationship. Therefore a parent's methods of educating a child must be different than a teacher's. At school teachers give a child general literacy and scientific knowledge; at home parents give a child general wisdom of life as parents themselves understand it.

The term "parenting" is a derivative of the word "parent" taken as a verb. When people say "to parent" a child it means "to be a parent," or "to fulfill parental duties." Since everyone who has a child has to parent he or she has their own view on what their parental duties are. Generally, the majority of parents admit that those duties are to provide for the basic needs of a child - the child's need for security and development. This implies security and development of a child's body, mind and psyche. In other words, it is physical, intellectual, and emotional security and development.

Parenting is usually done in a child's family by the mother and/or father (i.e., the biological parents). When parents are unable or unwilling to provide this care, it is usually undertaken by close relatives, such as older siblings, aunts and uncles, or grandparents. In other cases, children may be cared for by adoptive parents, foster parents, godparents, or in institutions (such as group homes or orphanages). There are also circumstances, such as on a kibbutz, where parenting is an occupation even when biological parents exist. Parens patriae refers to the public policy power of the state to usurp the rights of the natural parent, legal guardian or informal caregiver, and to act as the parent of any child or individual who is in need of protection (i.e. if the child's caregiver is exceedingly violent or dangerous).

Parental duties

Parental duties

Providing physical security

Providing physical security refers to a safety of a child's body, safety of a child's life.
To provide physical safety: shelter, clothes, nourishment
To protect a child from dangers; physical care
To care for a child's health

Providing physical development

Developing a child physically refers to providing a conditions to a healthy growth of a child.
To provide a child with the means to develop physically
To train the body of a child, to introduce to sport
To develop habits of health
Physical games

Providing intellectual security

Intellectual security refers to the conditions, in which a child's mind can develop. If the child's dignity is safe, that is nobody encroaches upon a child physically or verbally, then he is able to learn.
To provide an atmosphere of peace and justice in family, where no one's dignity is encroached upon.
To provide "no-fear," "no-threat,"no-verbal abuse" environment

Providing intellectual development

Intellectual development means providing opportunity to a child to learn - to learn about laws of nature and moral laws.
Reading, writing, calculating etc.
Intellectual games
Social skills and etiquette
Moral and spiritual development
Ethics and value systems
Norms and contributions to the child's belief and cultural customs


Providing emotional security

To provide emotional security to a child is to help protect and shield the child's fragile psyche. It is to provide a safe loving environment, give a child a sense of being loved, being needed, welcomed.
To give a child a sense of being loved through:
Emotional support, encouragement
Attachment, caressing, hugging, touch, etc.


Providing emotional development

Emotional development refers to giving a child an opportunity to love other people, to care, to help.
Developing in a child an ability to love through:
Showing empathy and compassion to younger and older, weaker and sicker, etc.
Caring for others, helping grandparents, etc.


Other parental duties
1. Financial support: Money provided as child support by custodial or non-custodial parent(s), or the state
2.. Insurance coverage and payments for education
3... Source of external stress