RIE(Resources for Infant Educarers), pronounced as “rye,” is often known as respectful, peaceful, or mindful parenting. RIE parenting is one of the parenting philosophies brought to the US by Infant Development Expert Magda Gerber. The Resources for Infant Educarers approach gives babies more independence and allows their natural abilities to flourish with minimal intervention and respect. The philosophy is different from other controlling parenting styles such as helicopter parenting and lawnmower parenting.
The RIE approach is growing and has received a great deal of attention in the last few years. The main principle of RIE Parenting is based on respect, trust, and connection. Respect is an essential part of respectful parenting. Children are born with their talents, passion, and ideas.
In the Resources for Infant Educarers approach, guardians believe that their newborn and minor children are competent in participating and playing without parental intervention. Hence you need to build relationships, get to know more, and facilitate your little children instead of seeing your job as doing everything for them, teaching and giving everything.
Guardians should relax, moderate down, watch, and respect their child instead of changing the newborn child into something else. The foundational principle of RIE is to respect infants as a unique and competent human being, not an object. Respecting a child is the basis of respectful parenting. Thus, the RIE approach illustrates respect in each interaction with the newborn child.
Gerber and her devotees believe that once you permit and empower a moment of independence in your small ones’ lives, you’re not only building confidence in them, but you’re moreover empowering their competence.
Working of RIE Parenting
The philosophy of RIE Parenting liberates both parent and kid to connect and be themselves. It centers on basic and baby-centered philosophy. A few essential principles of RIE Parenting are:
Let Your Child Observe and Discover
RIE Parenting technique emphasizes the idea of slowing down and letting children take time to discover and analyze their environment. Kids are always astonished to see the environment around them as everything is new to them.
RIE parenting believes that guardians need not require their kids to learn new things. If they choose what they’re looking for or play with, they go for a long time. This parenting technique helps children to engage in everything. It can be as simple as changing diapers, for instance, you can give them a choice to lift their legs while changing the diapers and teach them how to change the diapers. Parents should give guidance, not orders, in those activities.
Communicate With Your Child More Often
This parenting technique includes many discussions and communication, be it while changing your child’s diapers, feeding, or presenting them with a new game or activity. As per the RIE method, narration is one of the essential viewpoints.
You must act as a narrator and tell your children what you’re doing, what to anticipate, and more. This way, they will know what to explore, expect, and be prepared for that. In every learning process, by mindful narration, your child picks up on signals and behaviors, and they can learn naturally.
Help Your Child to Express Their Emotions
The RIE approach allows children to express their emotions be it crying, happiness, joy, pain, or bliss. When an infant is crying, parents panic and they rock, bounce, dance, or do things that stop their child from crying.
RIE parents let them cry because if you ask infants to stop crying, they will perceive that it’s not okay to express these feelings. They make sure that their kid’s needs are met, essentially hold and support them but won’t go over the edge trying to make them stop crying. Janet Lansbury says that “When a child is crying, we have to remain in a conversation with the child.”
You Can Be a Role Model For Your Child
Resources for Infant Educarers Parenting approach teaches your kids through example. They learn by seeing you. If you take care of yourself, stick to schedules, eat healthy food, and exercise, then looking at you, your kids will imitate those habits. And when it comes to disciplines, the Resources for Infant Educarers parenting method is approximately setting boundaries for your child and staying with them. It’s not about being strict but being exceptionally specific in your boundaries. That means children learn to sit down to eat, and if they get up, the food is cleared away.
For instance, if your child skimps on sleep, despite the discomfort, they are told to wake up, which teaches them to discipline instead of punishment, and they get to learn from their experience and don’t repeat it in the future.
Pros and Cons of RIE Parenting
The advantages and disadvantages of the RIE Parenting approach are listed below, which might be helpful for you to understand more about the RIE Parenting approach.
Pros of RIE Parenting
- By implementing RIE parenting, your kids develop quickly and set up skills on their own. Through self-directed learning, children learn by exploring their environments and movements like walking, crawling, jumping, and running. The RIE method allows your children to develop independence as you will be permitting them the space to create their skills, leading to a more confident and self-directed child.
- This technique helps to cultivate emotional intelligence in your children. It lets your kid learn to be in touch with their emotions on a deeper level. When kids grow up, they eventually become emotionally and mentally fit.
- The RIE(Resources for Infant Educarers) method believes that parents shouldn’t have any pressure and expectations and allow the genuine individual to develop from their child. The child is permitted to be themselves and given the authorization to be what they are. They are treated with respect and acknowledged from their earliest ages.
- As your child explores what they like the most, they start learning new and advanced things that sharpen their creativity, problem-solving, and decision-making skills. It gives them space to explore and helps them to think out of the box.
- Your child will become responsible. The RIE parenting method emphasizes the parent as an “educator.” It implies that the parent and child will interact at the highest level and empower them to be proactive members of their childhood. The child can take responsibility for their life.
- Babies are allowed to explore and learn new skills on their own. It implies that each time the child experiences an issue or cannot explore something, the guardians shouldn’t instantly bounce into activity and protect them. Offer help only when needed. You should hold back and allow your infant to figure it out. This allows your kids to ace different skills on their own.
Cons of RIE Parenting
Even though there are numerous advantages of RIE parenting, it comes with its own sets of drawbacks too. So, here are some disadvantages of RIE parenting.
- Parents should have equal responsibility in raising a child. It is silly to expect a two-year-old to make choices about what they ought to do or not. RIE parenting style makes sense when kids get to eighteen or nineteen years old. The thought that letting the “genuine” child develop depends entirely on what the “genuine” child sums to.
- Lack of parental comfort. Kids feel secure and at ease when touched, loved, supported, and relieved by the words. But, RIE parenting methods focus on letting the kids cry out their sentiments which is a significant disadvantage. Instead of attempting to minimize crying with shaking, moving, or singing, there may be more crying.
- Resources for Infant Educarers’ Parenting method provides more free time. With too much free time, children cannot learn the meaning of deadlines and set particular objectives and goals. Sometimes they will not be as productive as we think; hence, parents should set some standards.
- As said earlier, if children are not given guidance on objectives and goals in life, they are likely to fail the developmental milestones. It means that they may lack in numerous areas of learning.
- Simply allowing the child to be themselves, some behavioral issues need to be addressed. Children might take advantage of the RIE parenting approach for granted. With no structures, competition, and proper discipline compared to traditional parenting styles, kids might take these benefits for granted, hindering their development and personal advancement.
Conclusion
Parenting is a challenging yet overwhelming task so it is not easy to raise your kids. The Resources for Infant Educarers parenting approach helps parents connect with their children on a higher level and know more about them. This method believes that as a parent, you should trust in your child’s competence, and allows your child to enjoy and appreciate the authority of their possessed activities or actions. It encourages your kids to develop and mature emotionally and even helps parents to take off some pressure.
So, I suggest you opt for the RIE Parenting method if you want your kids to naturally grow, learn, play, increase cooperation in your child and foster the bond between you and your child. And, if you are a parent who needs to parent in a more diverse way than you were parented, then the RIE Parenting approach can be an incredible way to start your new parenting journey and parenting classes.
