Thank you very much everyone, thank you for spending willing to spend your time to be with me and hear my speech for today. For today, kindly lend me your ears and I would try my best to interest you with my speech about parenting. Perhaps before I begin my speech, I hope you will forgive me if I just remind you about the missing of our MAS Flight MH370 which until now, nobody knew what happens to them. Few month back then, the mainstream media reported and follows the Tweet of Maira Nari, 17 years old daughter of Andrew Nari, one of the crew for that unlucky flight.
“Come home fast dad, it’s the only thing I want”
“Daddy, Liverpool is winning the game. Come home, so you can watch the game! You never miss watching the game. It’s your very first time” Judging from all those tweets, we can see that her daughter’s strength, emotion and loves to him, as a credits and the results him being a good and example parent, where his lost felt deep by his daughter. This is what my speech will elaborates about, what does it takes to be a good parents. Yes, you can find hundreds of websites, thousands of books, and no shortage of magazines about parenting, but if you ask few people about the most important parenting quality, you will likely end up with just as many answers. Some would say love, attention, money, wealth, food. Some would say spending quality time with them while others would say discipline. But what is it actually? Which and how these factors would make parents, good? The truth is, it is hard to say because a parent is not intrinsically bad or good; they are just a parent who makes good or bad choices. Parenting actually is an ongoing process that has some trial and error, and requires you to accept and learn from your limitations. It is exactly like baking a cake. You put everything that you thought would make your cake tasty, but in the end, it is hardly to say how the end result would be. Ignoring that facts however, my speech will focused on six criteria to be a good parents that really matters, which are showing good examples, loving the child unconditionally, placing the child needs first, knowing when to punish or disciplining the child, knowing when to praise, giving reward or simply bribing the child, and last but not least, trusting the child to make certain decision. There is a proverb saying; “a child grew from watching their parents back”. This is partially true. Well at least in the early stages of a child life, until they learn about smartphone, internet application and gaming console. But still, this is one of important factor that effects on how the child going to grow up. Based on research by Australian Institutes of Family Studies, Bornstein 1991, compiled by Sarah Wise on 2003; that parent’s attitudes, believe and values described as “potentially exerting an indirect effect on child outcomes”. This proves that within families, a theory leading by examples are implied. A child might grew up to be a smoker, if his dad is smoker. A child might grew up to be a shopaholic if his or her mother is one, and a child might grew up to be a cat lover, if their parents loves cat. This facts, is really happening around us, and I could be living testimonials for that, if needed. So a good parents, always should show a good example to their child. Be a better person for next better generation that we “produced”. Secondly, a good parents would always love their child unconditionally. Well, exclude certain case of inhumanity that happening recently, most of the parents loves their child. But just keep in mind that love is not synonymous with material possessions, low expectations or inappropriate leniency. Loves means accept them no matter what. Let me give an example. When your child draw something on the wall using crayons, or when the child put toys, replacing the work assignment from your briefcase which you only noticed during the presentation hours, you still going to love them. Good parents would forgive the child while holding the child accountable for their actions. By loving also means, to provide what the child needs, not what the child want. An example for this case is when your child crying, wanting to play with a knife, or jumping from bed to bed refusing to sleep, way past after bedtimes, you certainly would not allow them to. But, figure an alternatives way or different method to achieve what we want to convey to them, without effecting the child creativity and interest. If your child want to play with knife, provide them with cooking utilities toys and a play dough. If your child hardly able to sleep at night, read them a bedtime story and make them a milk. That should able to help, for most common cases. Third, nobody can dispute the facts that a child spends most of their time at home. A good parents should know how to place the needs of the child first. Placing the child first shows him that he is important and nurtures his self-esteem. It helps him feel loved. It is not about giving the child toys or gadgets. It means giving the child time. After six to seven hours at school, the children will expect someone at home where they could share their thoughts, activities and events that happens to them on that day. Good parents listen when he shares his thoughts and fears. They spend time with the child on a regular basis, away from television and computers so that the child and parents can connect. If the child able to shares to us most of their problems, as much as they are with their friends, and if the child able to get along well with us and enjoying it as much as they are with their friends, means we are succeed in this factor. Take a few hours of our time per day, with our children to have a family time, and take a few days per month off to bring them for a vacation and family outings. Fun relieves stress in both children and parents. Play does more than just make great memories. Making time for fun shows the child her importance, and models good balance between responsibility and recreation. This is where the connection are made. This is what would prepare them mentally and emotionally for future possibilities. This also helps the parents to make the right decisions for and with the child. Fourth, which certainly happens most of the time, for the rest the parenthood life, is during the child creating, or involved in a trouble. There is actually a couple of ways to handle these issue. That is either with discipline or punishment. A good parents should always know on what and when to give punishment or discipline to their child. Discipline is an action, commands for a child to learn and behave appropriately, uses logical consequences that relate to the offense, to shows respect and helps a child learn self-control. Setting a rules or timetable for a child, asking them to tidy up their rooms, is an example of disciplining the child. Punishment however, is a way to make a child stop what they are doing or to make them “pay” for their unappropriated actions or behaviours. Punishments often have nothing to do with a child’s offense, are self-centred and place responsibility on the parent to take action. Always remember the thumb rules when giving punishments; must be appropriate and done as a last resort, and after listening to the child explanation and reason of why they did unappropriated action or mistakes. There is lot of way to punish your child without involving abuse or hurting the child. Example for this type of punishment is grounding the child at home, or taking away his favourite game console of hand phone for certain time period. This will teaches the child to be sorry and the effect will remind the child not to repeat the mistakes again. Fifth, and as a contradictions to the discipline and punishments, a good parents should know how and when to praise and reward or “bribe” the child. There is a difference between a reward and a bribe. A bribe is when you give a misbehaving child a treat in hopes that it will turn the behaviour around. If your child is misbehaving in the store and you say, “I will buy you a candy bar if you stop yelling.” that is a bribe. A reward on the other hand, is given after the child exhibits good behaviour. Telling a child prior before to going to the store, “If you behaves while inside the shop today, I will buy you an ice cream on the way out”, constitutes a reward. Rewards should target specific behaviour and are usually pre-planned. Rewards are healthy for children because the child would understands that privileges and extra incentives must be earned. Bribes could teach the child to use their behaviour as a way to manipulate others. Although bribes can be tempting as it can make child change their behaviour immediately, it usually does not teach appropriate skills over the long haul. But sometimes, bribing the child is the only way out of certain circumstances. Example is when the child is crying wanting to follow you to work, you can ‘bribe’ them by promising them that you will return home with their favourite treats. And make sure that you fulfilled that promise or the next bribing you tries will not work anymore. Rewarding, however should be done for each and every achievement they made. It is a long term commitment, and it might be vary from a small achievement to the parents and others such as they won third place in drawing competition, or fifth place in academic among their class, but to the child, this reward is a good motivation and best attention they can get from their parents. This will also give the child reason to try harder and better for any opportunity that came. Last but not least, a good parents always understand the principle of trusting the child to make decision. People usually respond to responsibility. Children, although it might be hard at first, but towards the ends will respond to responsibility. We all need places where we are trusted, where we can grow, develop, and prove ourselves. The only way you can learn the life skill of responsibility is by being given the opportunity to show responsibility. Part of bringing out the best in the children involves allowing them to fail. Parent’s tendency is to protect their child from failure; it is natural. They want to protect their children from mistakes. Parents do not want their child to feel bad. If they do fail, they wanted to bail them out quickly and provide them with solution without even consulting them, so the children will not suffer. But this doing is preventing the child from learning a valuable lesson. Everybody fails; nobody is good at everything. The key to this has nothing to do with not failing in life; it is to learn how to rebound from a failure. When parents do not give their children the opportunity to fail, they are actually saying to them, "You are not competent, and I do not trust you. You can’t handle it, so I am going to do it for you. You don’t know how it is supposed to be done. I will do it for you" That approach keeps the child dependent upon their parents, and will eventually develops low self-esteem to the child. To conclude my speech for today, again, I would like to emphasise this words. A good parenting happens when a parents or a person creates for a child a stable, nurturing home environment, by being a positive role model, and plays a positive and active part in a child’s life. Good parents provide moral and spiritual guidance, set limits, and provide consequences for a child’s behaviour. Good parents accept responsibility for the total development of the child and guide the child in making sound, healthy, life decisions through open communication and mutual respect. This is achievable if the parents able to show good examples to their child, to love the child unconditionally, to place the child needs first, do know when to punish or disciplining the child, do know when to praise, giving reward or simply bribing the child, and last but not least, to give trust on the child to make certain decision. But sometimes, even if we know that we had given everything that we could, but in the ends, it is all up to Him to decide what would happens. But this does not means that we should just give in to fate, but it is a motivational concept for us to try harder and give our best to our child, so we would not regrets later on, thinking of “what if”.
Finally, let me close my speech with a quotes for wise unknown; “You will seldom experience regret for anything that you have done. It is what you have not done that will torment you”.
Thank you for listening, have a great day everyone!

References:
Websites:
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2. Feature, J. (n.d.). How to Be a Good Parent: 10 Tips. WebMD. Retrieved June 24, 2014, from http://www.webmd.com/parenting/features/10-commandments-good-parenting

3. Diane, D. C. (n.d.). 8 Ways to Be a Better Parent. Parents Magazine. Retrieved June 24, 2014, from http://www.parents.com/parenting/better-parenting/advice/8-ways-to-be-a-better-parent/

4. Yawanda. (n.d.). What Does It Take To Be A Good Parent - Essay by Yawanda. . Retrieved June 24, 2014, from http://www.antiessays.com/free-essays/What-Does-It-Take-To-Be-77481.html

5. Quotes References: quoteland.com - Quotations on every topic, by every author, and in every fashion possible. (n.d.). quoteland.com - Quotations on every topic, by every author, and in every fashion possible. Retrieved June 27, 2014, from http://www.quoteland.com/

E-Book: 1. Marie, M. R. (2012). 45 ways to be a better parents. Simple tips, valuable resources and tools for effective parenting (). Bronx, NY 10458, United States: Fordham University.

2. Favaro, P. J. (1995). Smart parenting an easy approach to raising happy, well-adjusted kids. Chicago, Ill.: Contemporary Books.

3. Wiltshire, J., & Jay, R. (2008). Sneaky parenting: smart shortcuts to happy families. Great Ambrook: White Ladder.