Michael Gross is the Victorian Speaker of The Year for 2002, a former teacher of fifteen years, and a father of three teenage boys. He has written sixteen books, and over three hundred newspaper columns on parenting and raising happy, confident children.

The difference between effective and ineffective parenting is that effective parents have a plan. They know what they are trying to achieve as parents and have some idea of how they can achieve their aims.

Parents who don't have a plan become fire engines racing around putting out spot fires dealing with problems as they arise. They spend their energy reacting to problems rather than meeting their children's and their own needs and so preventing problems.

A Parenting Plan strengthens your understanding of your family, your parenting methods and gives you direction as a family leader. It also helps you to be proactive in meeting your children's and you own future needs.

When constructing a Parenting Plan it is important to consider the following:

• The five basic psychological needs of children - their need for love, belonging , approval, attention and competence.
  
• Your children's temperaments and their birth order personalities.
  
• Your parenting styles
  
• Your current family atmosphere

A Parenting Plan has two main parts:

1. A Family Mission Statement
2. Strategies to build individual resilience and build strong family

1. Begin with a Family Mission Statement:
We all need a philosophy to raise our kids by and a set of guidelines that help us with our daily decisions that impact on our parenting behaviour.

As parents it is easy to give into children's demands. We get tired so we give them the sweet or lolly that we know will spoil their meal because we don't want to put up with the whining or tantrum that may accompany a firm 'Not now, dear!' Or we put them down when we feel tired or irritable or spoil by giving them the world perhaps because we feel guilty for working long hours and not being around.

If you have a family mission statement the choices you make about how to raise your children and how to organize your life become fairly clear. It is never easy as
parenting comes at a cost, but the results will generally always be positive.

A Family Mission Statement includes the values that you want to promote and the ideals you want to aspire to. It should also contain some notion of your personal parenting philosophy.

Your Family Mission Statement may start with:

The main thing that typifies my family is...

In our family we value ...

The most important things in our family are ...

2. Then develop strategies that will help you in the follow areas:

• Esteem-building: Do you have any regular strategies in place that systematically build your children's self esteem? The great Austrian child psychologist Rudolf Dreikurs said, 'Like a plant needs water a child needs encouragement.' Encouragement is a continuous process not a one act play so how do you encourage your children to be the best they can be?
  
• Discipline: Are you consistent with discipline or is this a problem for you? Do you have a planned approach when confronted with children's behaviour or do you respond according to your mood or do you respond in much the same way as your parents did? Discipline is easy when children are easy. With more difficult children or when they move through challenging stages you need a planned approach to limit-setting, using consequences and responding to indiscretions. The work of Dr. Matt Sanders and his team from the University of Queensland has shown that parents with a discipline plan are infinitely more effective than those who have a haphazard, laissez faire approach to behaviour problems
  
• Building a strong family: Family cohesion doesn't just happen. Effective parents create the conditions where cohesion happens. Recent research shows that sibling rivalry is more of a problem than ever with many children being bullied by their siblings. In strong cohesive families children have conflict but it is not corrosive as it is in unhealthy families. What do you do on a regular basis to promote a cohesive strong family? Do you have strong family rituals that bind children together? Do you teach children to resolve conflict constructively and have strategies in place to deal with children who step outside acceptable ways of resolving conflict? Do you conduct family meetings so that children become an integral part of the family enterprise?
  
• Getting the balance right: Do you get the balance right between time and energy spent at work, spent with your partner, spent with your children, spent with each individual child and also some time for yourself? Do you consider ME time, YOU time and US time? Effective parents focus on themselves as people and foster their partnerships. Invariably resilient parents in robust relationships build strong families. A strong, caring and resilient family is the ideal social environment for a child.
  
• Parental support: Are you a parenting lone ranger or do you receive emotional, social and even financial support from those outside your family? It is hard to raise children in isolation so effective parents are those who have links to their broader family, their community and to institutions such as schools and supportive workplaces.
  
• Preventing Problems: Do you look ahead to identify future needs of each of your children. Look ahead for times of transition and change such as changing from primary to secondary school or moving into puberty. These times generally require more parental energy than others periods.

The choices become easier if you have a philosophy and a plan.