Assumptions

Birth To Three’s Assumptions About Parents and Children

1) Parenting is an incredibly important job: our future society depends on our children, so parents deserve much encouragement and respect for doing their best with this enormous challenge.

2) We parents and children are all learners – from the world and from each other. Learning is a life long process.

3) Parents are their child’s most important guides and teachers, even as parents themselves are learning to be more skilled and sensitive with their children. Just as we learn from our mistakes more easily when others are compassionate, so do our children.

4) More is expected of parents than of children since children are the more vulnerable and are more dependent on adults for their very survival.

5) There are many right ways to parent. We help parents to find their own best way to parent.

6) While all children go through developmental stages, each child is an individual with his/her own unique strengths and challenges. This is (of course) true for parents as well.

7) Children are motivated in their behavior to get their basic physical needs met, by the desire for growth and mastery, by a need for connectedness with others, and a need to be respected. These are positive motivations, basic needs. Nevertheless, children may still get off track from time to time as they strive to get their needs met. The assumption of good intentions gives parents the opportunity to see more possibilities for the child to learn as well as for parents to be more aware of strengths to encourage and build on. Having a negative assumption about children’s motivation can create a more limited view with fewer possibilities for positive action.

8) A sense of humor is essential to parenting.