Behaviours the parent may exhibit:

• Adapting expectations based on the child’s age and development stage;
• Considering the child’s needs;
• Being firm: clear rules and boundaries that are expected and consistent despite the child’s explosive outbursts;
• Listening to the child's point of view (communication topic 3) and providing the necessary assistance, depending on the situation; 
• Providing warmth, support and encouragement to the child;
• Validating the child’s feelings, enabling them to experience their emotions while guiding them in finding ways to express themselves appropriately;
• Perceiving discipline as a learning opportunity for the child;
• Encouraging initiative and fostering autonomy and exploration.

Potential impacts on the child:

• Having better self-esteem because the child feels important in the parent’s eyes;
• Having a greater ability to maintain effort or to pursue goals: develops perseverance when facing challenges and obstacles;
• Having better social skills, because the child is capable of considering and respecting others; 
• Complying with rules and being able to assert themselves;
• Having a greater ability to self-regulate their feelings.

Behaviours the parent may exhibit:

• Paying a lot of attention to the child’s needs without actively imposing boundaries;
• Being more affectionate than demanding;
• Tending to avoid confrontation and lacking consistency (a no becomes a yes).
• Experiencing discomfort when dealing with the child’s intense emotions and seeking to avoid them;
• Fearing the loss of their child’s love by imposing limits;
• Perceiving one’s child as a friend;
• Having difficulty taking charge of decisions and being quickly influenced by the perception or reaction of the child.

Potential impacts on the child:

• Prioritizing their own needs, which may lead to difficulties in considering and understanding others’ needs and feelings;
• Opposing rules, because they haven’t sufficiently learned how to tolerate frustration;
• Finding it hard to experience failure and challenges;
• Getting easily discouraged when required to make an effort;
• Having difficulty regulating their own emotions;
• Tending to experience more anxiety due to having greater freedom. At this age, the child is not equipped at the emotional level to take charge of their own development. Their need is to be guided and managed;
• Feeling the impact on the development of self-esteem, because they may experience social, academic, and personal failure.

Behaviours the parent may exhibit:

• Having very high expectations and demands which are not always adapted to the child’s stage of development;
• Giving more orders and less comfort;
• Aiming for obedience;
• Seeking to answer one's own needs, not those of the child;
• Providing few explanations when enforcing rules and consequences.

Potential impacts on the child:

• Feeling anxious due to the parent’s high expectations and demands;
• Closing in on themselves;
• Having low self-esteem; Potentially having difficulty asserting themselves with others;
• Accumulating anger and resentment toward the parent: the child may conform out of fear and may sometimes rebel out of a desire for opposition. This situation can become very difficult during adolescence when the child wishes to gain autonomy;
• Reacting more to frustrations because the child feels that the adult doesn’t listen to their experience;
• Tending to disobey rules when there's no supervision. The child complies with rules out of fear;
• Having a greater risk of developing delinquent behaviour during adolescence.

Behaviours the parent may exhibit:

• Giving the child little attention, affection, or guidance;
• Being more permissive and lax;
• Having difficulty meeting the child’s needs due to significant personal issues (mental health, financial stress, addiction to drugs or alcohol, etc.), demanding professional requirements, lack of well-meaning parental models in their own childhood, etc.

Potential impacts on the child:

• May experience psychosocial adaptation issues in various areas of life (e.g., attachment issues, behavioural problems, delinquency, substance abuse, etc.);
• May experience physical and mental health problems;
• May have developmental delay (e.g., language, motor skills).

Behaviours the parent may exhibit:

• Worrying about everything and seeing danger everywhere for their child;
• Often intervening to prevent problems, injuries, and uncomfortable feelings;
• Doing things in the child’s place, excusing behaviours to avoid the child experiencing frustration;
• Providing few opportunities to explore and gain experiences outside the family.

Impact on the child: 

• Perceiving threats everywhere and potentially becoming anxious;
• Potentially being shy and concerned when the parent is absent;
• Having few opportunities to develop self-confidence;
• Lacking in the development of autonomy.

Behaviours the parent may exhibit:

• Placing great importance on the child’s performance; Demanding high outcomes in all areas of life (school, sports, recreation, choice of friends, etc.);
• Being very demanding of themselves;
• Having a low tolerance for mistakes or errors.

Impact on the child: 

• Feeling tremendous pressure not to disappoint the parent;
• Losing self-confidence and getting discouraged;
• Avoiding certain tasks out of fear of failure;
• Having difficulty developing own identity, living own dreams and aspirations.

• Agreeing on which values to transmit to the children;
• Reaching a consensus on rules and routines to be implemented. The child will feel better if they feel their parents mutually agree on decisions;
• Mutually assisting each other, accepting that each parent can’t do everything on their own, and identifying their mutual strengths to help one another (e.g.: “As a mother, I get anxious during the children’s medical appointments. I let my partner accompany them because he is calmer and more confident.”);
• Discussing your parenting (when the child isn’t there) and taking the time to discuss a difficult situation and to assess which interventions to attempt or adapt. If one parent disagrees with the interventions of the other one, calmly discuss the matter.

• Continue working as a team despite the end of your relationship. You are still the child's parents.
• Reconstituted families shouldn’t involve the new partner in the child’s discipline from the onset: proceed gradually.
• Keep the children clear from disagreements between the parents. It is normal to experience intense feelings between the parents. These should be expressed appropriately and away from the children.
• Uphold each other’s parental authority. If the other parent makes a decision with which you disagree, do not interrupt their intervention. Once the child is no longer there, address the matter with the other parent.
• Maintain the integrity of the other parent. Even though you no longer love one another, that doesn’t mean you should stop respecting each other. Talking negatively about the other parent has extremely detrimental effects on your child. Sometimes, the criticism is indirect (e.g.: “You're going to be late, I know, because you’re at your mom’s/dad’s.”)
• Validate the information with the other parent. Children perceive things differently and can even change reality to avoid incurring displeasure, gain privileges, and protect a parent (e.g.: “Mom said/Dad said...”). When in doubt, validate those statements. The child needs to know that both parents discuss such information, and this safeguards the child.

• Topic 6 exercise

• Types of parents (French)
• When parents don't get along (French)
• THIBAULT, I, psychoeducator. Parenting Styles (French)
• La Maison CALM (French)
• The importance of communicating (French)
• Children and separation