Good Parenting

Parenting is a dynamic and interactive process.

There are attitudes or approaches that parents need to reexamine to make parenting effective. One of the common misconceptions that parents undertake is that, they think their children are like soft clay, to be molded into the shapes that they choose them to be. The child is not the property of the parents or a moveable asset owned by them. Parenting involves being affectionate and available to the children, ensuring their health, safety and education, nourishing and cherishing them as they grow into adulthood. This is what Kahlil Gibran’s “The Prophet” section on children is all about.

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as he loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the bow that is stable.

It is good to allow a child to have autonomy of his own. Parent’s responsibility is to just ensure that there is no excess, no imbalance in their child’s practice of autonomy. Firmness and fairness in dealing with a child go a long way in conveying a sense of a stable world to the child.

Another problem is that parents look parenting as a task, a very serious business. The tendency of parents trying to fit the child into his pre-fixed pattern grows extremely high. On the other hand, if parenting becomes enjoyable, it is good for both the parents and the children. A parent can and should offer guidance and direction, without trying to make the child to be like him.

The parent must value the child as a person, not merely as a reflection of one’s upbringing or an extension of oneself. As people, we tend to be accepting of our friends and a little intolerant of those related to us. If a parent can think of the child as a friend, who has chosen to enter his family circle, the changed perspective will transform the idea of parents controlling their child. It is true that the responsibility of parenting cannot be wished away or written off. The child is young, inexperienced, vulnerable and in need of protection and nurturance. The parental temptation to have absolute control over everything the child does or thinks should be stoutly resisted.

To make all these possible, the secret ingredient is love.