Posted: December 13, 2019
When a baby is born, along with it a mother and a father are also born. Often, we are eager to teach our little ones, while there is a lot to learn from them. So parenting is a two-way journey. You have to see what you want to learn from them and what you want to teach them!
A Sacred Responsibility
Parenting is a sacred responsibility. Our responsibility is not just providing food, shelter, and education. We are also responsible to ensure their mental outlook, emotions, intellect, thought processes, and behavior are on the right track. This is necessary.
If you are very orderly, children will make your life chaotic. Children are the best at breaking your boundaries. I remember how one of my uncles used to be very strict with my sister and me. When he had a son, his son started testing him and broke all his barriers. So, your children teach you a lot that others may not be able to.
How to be a good parent?
Here are 11 tips on how to be a good parent.
1) Observe Your Child’s Tendencies and the Direction Your Child is Taking.
Don’t try to make your child fit into your own vision. This is a big mistake many parents make. You have to share your vision with your child and dissuade them if their vision is harmful. Every child has come to this planet with certain tendencies that cannot be changed, and certain acquired talents that can be controlled. You can do a lot through modifying the acquired talents or personality of a child, but you cannot do anything about the seed that a child is born with. That will always manifest. You have to learn to distinguish between these two aspects – therein lies wisdom. And half the job is done if you can do that. The other half has to be left to the cosmos. You have no control over it.
2) Be Sensitive
An individual’s life and character is shaped by four factors. One-fourth of it comes from parents. Another one-fourth is acquired through education and upbringing. Karma or the cause and effect of one’s actions provides another one-fourth, and one’s own effort make up the last quarter. So parents form the very first foundation of a child’s life. A child starts his learning process by imitating his parents.
When parenting a child, you have to be very sensitive. This is one thing that you have to keep in mind. If you tell children not to lie but ask them to answer a phone call saying you are not at home, this is simply not going to work.
Children normally are keen observers. They observe everything, every moment. Most parents are oblivious of the fact that children are scrutinising them every moment. Therefore, it is important for parents to be free from stress, because parents’ stress or joy, their character and attitudes get transferred to the child.
3) Avoid Arguments in Front of Your Children
Avoid arguments at all costs in front of your children. Ensure they are not within sight or hearing when you argue. Also, given their sensitive nature, they can sense there has been discord between adults, so do your best to patch up before your children are back in the same room or back home.
4) Encourage Them to Share
Many times, we encourage the tendency in children not to give things away and to keep their possessions. When this goes beyond a certain limit, children feel suffocated. In time, they develop a tendency of holding back their feelings and emotions as well, which can be a hindrance to their personality. You must encourage the attitude of sharing in your children, as this helps them develop a healthy personality.
5) Give Them a Dream and Help Them Walk towards It
The whole process of parenting teaches you a lot of patience and perseverance. You have to help in leading your children towards where they should be going. Giving them a dream and persuading them to walk towards the dream is the biggest challenge in front of parents today. So, it is best to expose them to varied activities. This has to be done before a child is 10 years old. You should take your children to science and art fairs and expose them to many different subjects.
6) Engage Your Children in Social Service
On a Sunday, give them some chocolates and ask them to distribute them to the poorest people they can find. Once or twice in a year, take them to a slum and ask them to engage in social service. This will enhance their personality in many subtle ways and make them more thankful for what they have.
7) Give Your Children a Holistic Education
You have to expose your children to science as well as the arts – both sides of the brain need to be nourished. For example, books nourish the left side of the brain whereas musical instruments nourish the right side of the brain. The two parts of the brain have to be balanced by meditation. So, knowledge, music, and meditation – all three are required to make education complete. Only when these 3 are developed can you call someone educated and civilized. So, make sure that children learn music and yoga, and have a scientific education. Children are naturally drawn to music and dance. It is advisable to expose them to music which is not too aggressive, harsh and hard rock type.
8) Protect Your Child’s Trust
Children, by nature, have a tendency to be trusting. But somehow, their trust is broken. We need to look into that. Do they trust themselves? Do they have enough confidence in themselves? A healthy child has three kinds of trust:
a. Trust in themselves
b. Trust in the goodness of the people around them and in society
c. Trust in God or a higher power
These three types of trust are prerequisites for children to blossom into good human beings.
9) Encourage Your Children to Interact with All Age Groups
Observe your child’s interactions. See how they interact with those younger than themselves and how they interact with those older? Then observe how they interact with those in their own age group? These observations can reveal a lot. You can observe whether your children are developing any superiority or inferiority complexes, or whether they are becoming introverts or extroverts. And you can play a very important role here to preempt negative traits from manifesting. Play some games with them and encourage them to interact with all age groups.
Children who have an inferiority complex would like to interact more with the younger ones, would try to run away from older ones, and even try to avoid their equals. Children with superiority complexes shun the younger ones and would only want to relate to the older ones. They are not good communicators in either case. As parents, you can teach them communication skills early on. It is very important for them to learn how to communicate.
10) Instill a Sense of Balance in Your Child
Do you encourage your children's complaints? Do you encourage their negativity or do you mold it into something positive? You have to play a balanced role. Sometimes your child comes to you and says that so and so is so good, but you know that that child is not so good. Here you have to point out the challenges that you have observed in their personalities and bring your child to the center.
Sometimes, they get swayed by somebody whose habits are not so good; you have to inform them about the negative things.
In the same way, when they are telling you negative things about somebody, you have to point out the positives. So, you have to do a balancing act whenever a child swings too much to the left or too much to the right.
11) Positive Approach
While dealing with children or educating them, one tends to give a lot of negative suggestions. We should be conscious of this and instead should give positive suggestions. Instead of saying, “Don’t go there”, we can say, “Come here”. Similarly, instead of saying, “Don’t throw the bottle”, we can say, “Keep the bottle there”. One can make an effort to make suggestions more affirmative than negative.
Children are a blessing from the Divine. Not only do they bring immense joy with them, bringing them up is a highly educational experience for the parents. They get plenty of opportunities to become more caring, more patient, to lead by example and most of all, to shower all their love on their bundles of joy. In some sense, it will not be wrong to say that parents play the role of God. With so many flavours, parenting can be a very colourful journey and a rewarding one too.
(This is a compilation of Gurudev Sri Sri Ravi Shankar’s different talks on parenting)
