Parenting
Parenting
"Parenting is an art and the ultimate long-term investment. When we said investment, not with an expectation of selfish returns; but a selfless act of nurturing our children. Be prepared to put far more into it than you get out of it, at least for some time. I have been working more closely with teenagers / young adults and there has been always a craving by those adolescents that parents don’t understand their feelings and/or they don’t spend time with them. We meant quality time and not the time spent for finding fault, academic progression/concerns, reprimanding so on and so forth. Parents exert enormous influence over their children's development from the infancy stage onwards. They are, however, not the only influences, especially after children enter school. especially important that parents give children a good start, but it's also important for parents to recognize that kids come into the world with their own temperaments, and it is the parents job to provide an interface with the world that eventually prepares a child for complete independence. In a rapidly changing world, parenting seems subject to fads and changing styles, but the needs of child development as delineated by science remain relatively stable. Of all the essentials of parenting the most missing essentials are effective communication between parents and children as well as understanding the feelings of their children at various growing stage. As parents, you may be providing all materialistic things which, in most cases, the child doesn’t even be wanting or expecting, but you could have failed to provide what they really are expecting from you. Just pause and give this a serious thought.
a) Maybe you haven’t even thought about this in wildest of your dreams. You have
provided comfortable room with soothing ambience, study table, all sorts of comics
and books, latest PC or PS4 games that you either bought on Amazon.com or your
cousin recently brought them from USA or Canada, branded dresses, shoes and
what more could you have given with your disposal income. After all, you have been slogging for your child’s future by working extra hours, travelling across the country and even globe, physically drained out and mentally stressed out.
b) But the child wanted to spend quality time with you atleast one meal a
day together or a relaxing evening stroll together, chat with cool frame of mind about general things (other than evaluating academic progress, marks, talks on don’t do this, don’t go there don’t, don’t and many such don’ts) and much more of these sorts.
Do you know what some of the kids expressed about their parents when we conducted our workshops and trainings right from government schools/colleges to reputed schools and colleges?
1. My father doesn’t talk to me much, he only opens his mouth to either shout at me or punish me
2. When I go to talk to him, he says, “I am very tired, leave me alone” or he would be talking to someone over the phone about his work or business even after coming
back home.
3. There is not a single day where my parents don’t argue or fight, which makes me feel so bad and I don’t feel like being at home.
4. My parents compare me with my siblings, neighbour’s children, cousins when I don’t score good marks or when I do something mischievous (as kids, is it wrong to be naughty ??) the worst feeling is that they don’t even acknowledge or appreciate when we go well in our academics or when we something great.
5. When I tried to express my interests in any creativity or sports, I was snubbed and
told that nothing other than studying.