Why Kids Need Parental Guidance

Parental guidance is something that is vital to children at every stage of development. Children go to school to learn math, spelling, reading, science, etc. but they come to parents to learn everything else.

It is a parent’s job to teach their child how to feel emotions, how to be responsible, what respectful behavior is, boundaries, etc.

I often have parents tell me that they don’t like to cry in front of their children. I then ask why because this is how children learn to be sad in a healthy way, or angry in a healthy way. Children need parental guidance to understand healthy ways to be angry, sad, disappointed, frustrated, etc.

They also need parental guidance to learn and respect boundaries, which inherently teach children disappointment. I often have children come to NHPS because they struggle with being disappointed. Teaching your child boundaries will help them understand and respond appropriately to rules, boundaries, and disappointment.

While we all want our children to have the world, they need to learn that they can’t always get what they want, despite Grandma saying otherwise. :) Their ability to learn this through parental guidance when they are young helps them respect rules and age-appropriate disappointments later in life, like breaking up with a partner.