It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the Sun. All I can do is reach of it, myself. – Joyce Maynard
Parenting has never been as tough as it is today. Modern life has excessive distraction, excessive independence, excessive materialism and diminishing spiritual values. This has made parenting complex enough for parents to wake up to their fact that; it has to be in the ‘here and now’. No amounts of past role models are good enough to guide us today. Hence, we have to rely on our own instincts and along with increase of our understanding of the changing needs of today’s times. Parenting is certainly challenging and rewarding.
Two important principles in parenting will give you an upper edge and make you confident about parenting.
- Change your behaviour to change your child’s behaviour. A child’s biggest tool to learn is ‘imitation’. He does as he sees and repeats what is rewarded.
- Most inappropriate behaviour is developmentally appropriate. Understanding what is happening to your child physically, emotionally, and mentally will equip you to approach ‘problem behaviour’ differently.
The age appropriate power and control you give your child, the more control you will gain as a parent. You will be able to pull him up keeping your child’s self esteem intact.
Through these articles I would like to offer understanding of self help tools to deal with the nagging problems ranging from birth to adolescence. Issues and concerns are best when they come from you as your experience of parenting.
Hopefully, this blog will give you ideas that you may not be able to find on your own despite your believing – ‘I know what I am suppose to do, but I don’t know how to do it’. The over tone of your own emotions and upbringing tend to influence parenting. If you rewind your tape, you will discover very similar behaviour in a parallel situation. Hence, it’s not about mending’ it’s more about understanding.
Voices, echoes and shadow of responses will open up this space and provide rich interaction between us all.
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