Positive Parenting Research
Many forces shape and influence the development of children
from conception through adolescence. For nearly all children,
parents are the most powerful of these influences -- for better
or for worse. The socialization of children involves modeling,
nurturance, communication, monitoring, guidance, discipline,
and occasional punishment–a set of processes sometimes
summed up as "love and limits". Most parents have
considerable concern and many questions about the best ways
to perform these functions. Especially perplexing to many
parents is the use of physical punishment. On the one hand,
most parents probably experienced some degree of physical
punishment in their own upbringing and our culture tends to
support parents in its use. On the other hand, most parents
do not feel good about hitting their children and realize
that it is not an effective way to teach.
These matters are what Positive Parenting,
a multifaceted project of the University of Minnesota Extension
Service in cooperation with many other agencies, is all about--to
review for educators, family-serving professionals, and parents
what is known about the physical punishment of children by
parents and its consequences; to offer parents alternative
ways to nurture and discipline their children; and to attempt
to influence the attitudes of parents and others about the
hitting of children.
The Positive Parenting project
has five components: research, professional development, education,
public awareness and evaluation. Each of these components
will be discussed below. But first, a brief review of the
project's conceptual framework will be offered.
