“Making the decision to have a child – it is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ”
And that’s not easy. We are not just worried about their health, their future but the anxiety of they getting hurt even if it’s a bruise, it hurts us more that it probably hurts them.
We won’t sleep a wink when our little price or princess is unwell.
We always want to be with them lest they get hurt. Wanting to support them for everything. Be it feeding them, putting them to bed, getting them ready for school, ensuring that they have done their Homework and are prepared for their exams. Have they eaten well? Have they eaten healthy? Have they had enough sleep? Are they well covered? Et all These questions are never ending. As our pediatrician said to us when Aman was 3 months old, your worrying for your child will never end, even until he is 80! It’s a life-long phenomenon only the modalities of what you are worried about is going to change.
Having said that; there are no manuals for bringing up children and there is no set method. But there are tools and techniques – some fundamentals which if keep in mind and used in your our unique way in your own unique environment work like miracles.
One of the most fundamental and yet simple shift which we need to make in parenting is to understand what is parenting. To simply put it Parenting is the art of making your child responsible for their life!
Simple! But not easy. To make him responsible for his food, hygiene, studies, getting ready, health etc. we have to give up being the one responsible for these. The more we do not take responsibility of their life the more they start taking it up. However we are not talking about ‘letting them be’ we are saying making them responsible and to keep putting back the responsibility and the consequences thereof on them till they take it on themselves.
The way to it – “let them fall and experience the consequences” –
SIMPLE but not easy
The second fundamental approach to parenting is that “children do exactly what you do and not what you say”. You don’t have to become a role model – You are one! They copy you, especially till the around they are 10 odd years old – or until the time they realize that parents say something but do something else and therefore they can’t be trusted.
So simple it is – you want them to have vegetables – start having vegetables with as much enthusiasm yourself, you want them to spend time together vs being on the screens; be together and give up being on the phone etc. You want them to be meeting people and chating up sharing – do that yourself and see the impact!
SIMPLE.. but not easy.
One of the most difficult but simple fundamental of parenting is the ability to listen. Just listen to them and they will talk and share their world. Listening means – getting their world, their feelings, their emotions without judging or evaluating them, without telling them that is was right or wrong; or its not right to think like this; without giving them the ‘gyan’ of what not to do and what to do; without telling them ‘I told you so’. This will make them share and be close to you.
SIMPLE.. but not easy
