Art of Parenting

Parenting is an art and each one of us should know it before we become parents. Why is it so crucial? What is its significance in one's life? How can be I a good mother? These are some of the questions that continuously helping me to reflect my own practices and beliefs as mother. You can find number of parents around you who appreciate their child on their obedience and following instructions, but my question to them is, are we dealing with human beings or machines? Do we want to make our child as leader or the follower? Why are we so emphasizing on their obedience and in return killing their creativity and empowerment? And then when they grow old, we expect them to take major decisions of their lives intelligently and independently. It is like you don't educate a person and ask him / her to act like a renowned scientist. I intensely feel the importance of this topic for the development of nation in general and community in particular. This write-up is therefore to invite every reader for their critical reflection and thoughts on my sharing based on my learning through readings, observations and experiences.

There is no doubt that I love my daughter very much like all mothers but some times I reflect that my own principles and wishes dominate my love. This is when I impose things on her (definitely with good intension as per my view) rather than accepting her individuality. I as a parent want to see my child excelling in every field; she must be healthy, intelligent, social, morally developed etc etc besides realizing that being an adult I myself is even not so perfect. Due to this long wish list, I sometimes suppress her individuality through my rigid decisions and rules. Take an example, I ask my daughter to complete the meal that I cook for her. For this I use different weapons both emotional and psychological like bribing, praising, scolding. I neglect other conditions like her mood, liking / disliking of that particular food, state of hunger and digestion. On the other side MY RULE IS RULE that needs to be followed at any cost. This sometimes results in her vomiting that creates problem for both of us. This seems a small issue but it can serve as the best example of cruelty. No doubt I do that practice with good intentions to make her healthy and fit but the approach I used is very unhealthy and leads to worse decision and worst outcome. There are many other examples in daily routine where I feel that my praise and gifts make her dependent of getting social acceptance and material benefits rather than satisfaction on her own decisions and accomplishments.

I was reading a book "kids are worth it!" by Mrs. Barbara Coloroso who explained three different types of parenting. According to her, families have mini-cultures that develop language, attitude and behaviors of individuals. These three types of families are;

1. Brick-Wall Family: Very rigid parenting where rule is from parents and child has to abide it. Otherwise child gets punishment or humiliation. Parents enforce their rules rigidly and teach their child what to think and not how to think.

2. Jellyfish Family: These are very flexible family with no recognizable disciplines, rules and norms. Parents go with their children’s decisions all the time and do not contribute their roles. They are least bother what their children are doing as they give them complete freedom regardless of its implications

3. Backbone family: It lies between the above two extreme types where parents give necessary support and structure along with the democracy and authority to child. Children were taught how to think. They always get love, hugs and smiles from family members and feel that this love is not only subject to abiding the rules.

This book provides me several points to think and reflect on my perceptions and practices. I realized that besides controlling, there are other ways to make children disciplined. This is when you accept their ownership and authority to their lives as responsible citizen. Author says that other than life threatening situations where you need to be rigid in your decisions, otherwise child should feel ownership on their decision. There is no need to give them mini lectures but to model good practices by you, no need to tell them what is right or which colour should s/he wear but let them decide good for them. Let them take their decisions and learn through their mistakes. The impact of learning will be more when they think themselves rather than thinking through their parents' minds.

I believe, as a parent, self reflection is the first step but bringing this learning into practice is second and the challenging one. But I feel I, you and we all CAN do it because we all love our children VERY MUCH