Couples therapy questions PDF
If you are a therapist looking for a positive parenting worksheet PDF to include in your positive parenting workbook PDF, you’re in the right place.
This article answers the common question, “What is positive parenting?” and provides examples of positive parenting techniques and skills.
We’ve included a free parenting skills workbook PDF and a downloadable positive parenting worksheet PDF to save to your electronic health record (EHR) and share with clients in your practice.
What is positive parenting?
Positive parenting is an approach to parenting that fosters a nurturing, loving, and structured environment that promotes children feeling safe, valued, and supported in their growth and development.
The strategies used in positive parenting help guide children to act in a desired way through encouraging, teaching, and modeling.
This approach to parenting helps children develop strong relationships, self-regulate emotions, and build confidence.
The positive parenting worksheet PDF can help you implement these strategies effectively in your daily parenting routine.
Research shows that positive parenting has many benefits for children, extending to adolescence and later life.
Positive parenting can set children up for success, having a positive influence on:
School performance
Children have fewer behavioral problems
Stronger mental health
Better functioning of the adolescent brain in the areas associated with emotions and cognition
A happy and healthy adulthood
Adult mental health and well-being, and greater life satisfaction
Developing quality relationships and strong attachments
More positive self-perception
Parenting skills and techniques
We’ve included a range of positive parenting skills and techniques below.
These strategies are also available in our comprehensive positive parenting workbook PDF for easy reference and implementation.
Infant-based parenting skills (0 to 1 years)
Positive parenting tips for infants include:
Talking to your baby
Responding to their noises
Reading to your baby
Singing or playing music
Providing praise and encouragement
Cuddling
Playing with your child
Use distraction techniques, such as toys or safe areas, when they start moving or touching things you want them to avoid
Toddler-based positive parenting techniques (for children 1-2 years old)
Ask them to name certain body parts or objects
Encourage your child to explore and try new things, like a new food
Help them develop their language skills (for instance, if they say, “Dadda,” you might respond, “Yes, that is daddy”)
Take field trips and ask them to name specific things they observe
Redirect undesired behavior by showing or modeling desired behaviors
Positive parenting tips for preschoolers (3 to 5 years old)
Download our positive parenting worksheet PDF to track and implement these strategies with your preschooler:
Continue reading to your child
Take your child on learning adventures, such as to the bookstore or library
Use more developed words and speak in complete sentences
Correct words and phrases
Identify basic emotions at around four or five years old using a printable emotion faces chart
Help your child problem-solve together
Let your child do simple household chores
Other positive parenting tips
As children age, you can encourage responsibility and accountability, build strong connections, and talk to them about the future and positive behaviors and boundaries.
Some ways you can do this include:
PRIDE skills
PRIDE is a model incorporating five positive parenting techniques, including:
Praise: This guides children about boundaries and standards of behavior, praising the child when they meet the parent's expectations and providing encouragement and praise for their efforts.
Reflection: Reflect back the child’s words to show you are listening and elaborate on their words to promote ongoing dialogue and language development.
Imitation: Play or mimic how your child behaves to make them feel important, connected, and learn valuable social skills.
Description: Narrate your child's play to show you are paying attention. For instance, you might name colors, use new words, recall parts of a story, encourage kids to dress themselves, and sing songs together. These techniques increase their attention span and teach new words and concepts like shapes, sizes, numbers, and colors.
Enjoyment: Use body language and your voice to express warmth, enjoyment, and positive emotions, like hugging and kissing your child, letting them know how much you enjoy being around them, laughing together, smiling, and making eye contact.
Promote independence
When possible, give your child the autonomy to choose, such as “Would you like chicken or pizza and salad for dinner?”
Rewards and consequences chart
This system positively reinforces desired behaviors, as well as intentional and non-punitive consequences, like a time-in (see below), to remind kids of behaviors to work towards.
You can find a positive parenting worksheet PDF with a printable rewards and consequences chart to help track these behaviors here.
Positive behaviors might include being kind to others, sharing, taking turns, asking permission, following directions, being patient, working hard, focusing and staying on task, accepting no for an answer, using nice words, compromising, helping with chores, saying please and thank you, and doing things for others.
Modeling behavior
By modeling and expressing your feelings, you can indirectly encourage emotional expression in your children. Our positive parenting workbook PDF includes exercises to help you practice and model emotional awareness with your children.
For instance, you may tell them you feel unwell and impatient. Doing this demonstrates transparency by expressing your true feelings and showing the child that feeling unwell is OK.
Create a gratitude jar
As a family, you can practice sharing gratitude to promote a positive outlook and celebrate what you have rather than what you don't.
Create a weekly ritual in which each family member writes down what they are grateful for that week and places their gratitude list in a mason jar, which the family can read together at the end of the year.
Systems to reward behaviors
Behavior charts: A visual (and sometimes reward-based) system used to motivate, encourage, track, and reward positive behaviors. Our positive parenting workbook PDF includes printable behavior charts and tracking tools to help you implement this system effectively.
Using praise: Thank your child when they display desired behaviors and recognize their efforts, even if they are disappointed and don’t achieve their goal, as you teach them the value in working toward an objective, which requires consistent effort and hard work.
Implementing a token economy system: A token economy chart is a reward-based system that encourages kids to complete specific tasks or routines for which they can accrue rewards.
Time-ins and time-outs: A time-out is used as a consequence for undesired behavior. Time-ins focus on staying connected and help teach the child to regulate.
How to use the positive parenting worksheet PDF
You can download and use our positive parenting worksheet PDF in several ways.
For example, print or screen share the parenting skills PDF as a psychoeducational session prompt.
Give the positive parenting worksheet PDF to the family to remind them of what you discussed during therapy.
Incorporate the worksheet with other tools in a positive parenting workbook PDF that you could give to clients or supervisees.
Ask the client or family to reflect on the positive parenting worksheet PDF between sessions, try out a positive parenting skill, and report their progress at their next therapy appointment.
Sources
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (2024). Positive Parenting Tips.
UC Davis Health. (n.d.). The power of positive parenting.
Chen, Y., Haines, J., Charlton, B. M., & VanderWeele, T. J. (2019). Positive parenting improves multiple aspects of health and well-being in young adulthood. Nature human behaviour.
Li, M., Lan., R, Peng, M., Gong, H. (2023). The effect of positive parenting on adolescent life satisfaction: the mediating role of parent-adolescent attachment. Frontiers in Psychology.
Neppl, T. K., Jeon, S., Diggs, O., & Donnellan, M. B. (2020). Positive parenting, effortful control, and developmental outcomes across early childhood. Developmental psychology.
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