There are a few life situations when parenting tips are more than welcome:

• Single mothers: most of the times, especially when the father bears a lot of authority in the family and he suddenly disappears, either by death or by divorce, children would become rebellious and tend to misbehave. Mothers have a hard time in taming the teen beasts who seem to be determined to make everybody’s life a hell, including theirs.
• Teenage parenting: even if both parents are ready to educate their kid, there is this age when the future adults start to gain a lot of confidence in themselves, and they tend to ignore advice got from their parents. They feel responsible and fully aware of what they are doing, and they want to be left alone.
• Step parenting: if you ever think to marry with somebody who brings in his or her own children, beware you’ll have a hard time. You will never be able to make the teen perceive you as a replacement to his natural mom or dad, so you’re walking on a very thin edge here. Don’t attempt to behave like a parent, rather try to show yourself as a friend.

If you are concerned that your kid is spending too much time online and you cannot control him, you can buy one of those computer monitoring programs which can spy on him and give you the full report on the online activity.

Whatever parenting tips you may have learned from parenting magazines and other similar things, the best tips will come straight from your experience, as there are no kids alike. We all are unique and so are our children.

Praise often. Your child will feel much more confident, if he feels appreciation from adults. Try to find something good and praise him for that, every day. It is true children can sometimes be impossible and drive everybody crazy, but even then, there must be something good they did that day.
When your child is feeling depressed or sad, be patient and talk to him. Listen, but don’t criticize. If the child will get the impression that he’d get punished every time he expresses his real thoughts and feelings, very soon he’d learn to shut up, and you’d never find out anything from his private universe.
Teach your child that setting goals and pursuing them is important. Help him, by setting up small projects to do, then follow up their course.

Last but not least, the child should know that you love him, so you’d better be telling him that every single day.

Smaller children usually do not understand, for example, the reason why they aren’t allowed to play ball in the house, or why they cannot play outside at night. But the one thing they do strive to do most of the time is to make their parents proud and happy. So when a young child asks “Why?” or “Why not?” when they are told they can’t play with something or someone or why they have to obey a rule you’ve set forth, simply explain to them that “because it makes me happy when you follow the house rules and do what I have asked of you.” You should avoid using the term, “Because I said so,” as that is not satisfactory for the child, and all it does is to further frustrate him. One special topic tackles children and divorce, but this is a very delicate issue, so we are going to treat it in a separate article.

Teenagers will probably require more from your explanation, because they really want to understand your reasoning. When they question why to do or why not to do something. it’s best to straight forward state your reasoning. “I asked you to be home by 10 p.m. because we have to leave for vacation very early in the morning, as we have a very long way to go.” It is also a great opportunity for you to reinforce the consequences of ignoring the rule. “If you are not home by 10 p.m., you’ll be punished for a week, with interdiction of visiting your friend.” Be consistent and clear, in order to avoid generation confusion.

If your child would try to contest a rule, or to ask why it’s been put into place, you can be happy. It means he’s growing up, and it shows a mature way of thinking. Don’t get frustrated, and remember the questions you used to ask when you were a teenager. Many causes of teenage drinking come from the lack of communication and understanding.

It is in the human nature to react rather than to respond. We pass judgment based on our own feelings and experiences, and we don’t give a damn about our child’s ones. But what does it really mean, responding? It means being receptive to our children’s emotions. It means granting them the right to express their thoughts openly, without fear of consequences from us. By reacting, we invalidate the feelings and opinions of the child. Active and responsive listening opens a dialog that allows them to open up even more, so you’ll be able to discover what is behind those feelings and beliefs. Besides, the child will feel like being understood, which gives him a comfort and a feeling of wellbeing, which are very important for strengthening your relationship with him.

When your child comes to talk with you about a problem, you should focus all your attention on him. Leave aside anything else for a half an hour. Nobody would die because of that, and you’ll give your child a trust feeling and a support he needed in the first place, when he came to talk to you.
Don’t discourage your child from negative feelings like anger, frustration or fear. Our initial instinct may be to tell them these are not good and not normal, but all we do is to grow him up unprepared for life. He will suffer any time somebody around him will get angry or frustrated, and he will have his feelings hurt. However, you can indicate your child some possible solutions to make the bad feeling go away.

Children have their own problems. For us, they might seem not important, but be sure that for them they are as important as it is for us the fact that we lost our job (only to give you one example). So, listen to your children and give them comfort. You are a parent, so behave like one.