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While bad parenting and good parenting can trigger a never-ending debate, there are certain points which every parent would definitely consider bad and would agree to not include in their parental regime.

What is bad parenting?

When parenting is a burden instead of an inspiration for a child, its bad. When children try to escape parents instead of looking up to them, it is when one should know parenting has gone terribly wrong.

How do you recognise signs of bad parenting?

Under or over involvement: Getting highly involved or totally being reclusive to kids is considered to be bad parenting. Being a strict disciplinarian to your kid will widen the communication gap with your kids and being too friendly would shrink it down. Either way the parental ties will be detached from the kids. Every parent, should therefore understand the optimum way to deal with kids.

Punishment: According to American Academy of Pediatrics, “aversive” discipline techniques like yelling and spanking are a really bad idea. Not only do studies show that they don’t work that well, they can have long-term negative effects. Kids who are exposed to such punishments tend to develop aggressive behaviour when they grow up.

Inconsistency: As parents, if you have set certain limits follow it religiously. Do not make rules and break them in front of your kids. Your inconsistency to rules, promises and commitments will give them reasons to pick up on these habits. Even if you break the rules, make sure you set a consequence for that. Set an example before your child on why rules should not be broken.

Not being careful of moods: Parenthood is the toughest phase in one’s life. While on one hand being a parent demands all your energy and hardwork, on the other hand it requires you to be a role model for your child. Do not let your mood make you appear vulnerable before your kids. If you are upset, make sure you are not venting out the frustration before your child.

Limited interaction: Due to hectic office life, many parents do not get sufficient time to talk to their kids. Due to a visible gap in communication kids either keep their concerns to themselves, or else look out for friends or other family members. While interaction with kids is not a major problem in big joint families, in nuclear families where both parents are working, a child finds less time to interact with the parents.

Giving expensive gifts: Very often it is seen that parents try to give their kids expensive items in order to compensate for communication and interaction gap. They assume that resorting to expensive gifts would retain the parental ties with the kid, whereas the reality is this makes kids dependent on expensive products and in the long run it may turn into an irresistible urge.

Comparison: The golden rule of parenting is to not compare your child to others. Be it a school play performance or the marks scored in a mathematics test, a child’s ability should never be a yardstick for measuring the parents’ efficiency. Parents should embrace the innate talents that their kids have, instead of brooding over what neighbour kids are doing.

In a nutshell, parenting is a personal thing. Every parenting has a different set of rules and patterns. But somewhere there lies a common objective, which is to raise a generation kinder, gentler and better.

“It’s normal to struggle with discipline — every parent does, at some point. So ask for help whenever you need it. Your pediatrician can be a resource, as can family, friends, and behavioral health clinicians. It takes a village to raise a child; everybody needs help sometimes,” says Claire McCarthy, MD, Senior Faculty Editor, Harvard Health Publishing