The art of parenting

Family - The Art of Parenting

Parenting can be a complicated but satisfying accomplishment when undertaken with a combination of planning, foresight, understanding, empathizing, guiding and tolerance. Dr. Sujendra Prakash, an eminent Behaviour Scientist reflects on The Art of Parenting.

 

A proud moment comes in every man or woman’s life on the day one becomes a parent. We fondly welcome the newborn and its every developmental milestone becomes a matter of enjoyment.

 

Why does it not last longer?

Why do we start getting irritated with our own child as it grows day after day? Did the child become someone else we did not want or is it that we have trained our own child, without our knowledge, that way?

 

These questions need answering because hundreds of parents come to me seeking guidance and suggestions about what went wrong. However, they need to understand that it is not the question of what is right or wrong for the child but what is effective and ineffective.

 

The following tips would help parents in making their lives meaningful and show to the world that a happy parent can exist. All the tips may not apply to everyone but I invite the parents to be the judge of using these mechanisms whenever they face problems or as a means of prevention.

Each child is unique

No two people in the world are similar, especially when it comes to the psychological functioning. Psychology studies individual differences as the major subject matter because psychologists realize that each person is unique. What works for one child need not have to work for another child, though both could be siblings and share the same inheritance. Our thoughts, our feelings, and our perceptions are different from all others in the world. We, however, make approximations to our internal behaviour so that we understand others around us and at the same time enable others to understand us. Parents should invest some amount of time and effort to understand the child before dealing with it.

 

Nevertheless, parents neither are qualified nor are they experienced in understanding the children and thus, a lot of misunderstandings and misgivings occur. We learn our parenting skills from our elders our neighbors and our friends and relatives. Majority of this learning cognitive through imitation and modeling. Some leanings latent and such parenting behaviors are manifested without our awareness.

 

Hence, it is imperative to do a considerable amount of cognitive restructuring to make us more open-minded in dealing with children.

The child always says what it needs

Many parents do not agree but the fact remains that almost all children communicate to their parents what they feel, what they think and what they perceive. Yet we reject their suggestions and argue that we are right. Each time the child argues with you or opposes you, please listen to him or her. Do not argue but think what the child is trying to communicate. The fact that you are trying to understand the child makes a lot of difference to sustain relationship. A child is not able to communicate the same way an adult does As we are supposed to be wiser than them we must try to understand them rather than trying to coerce into them that they should understand us. Emotionally, socially and intellectually children are still in developing stage and they are not able to put across their ideas as ‘diplomatically’ as we expect them to.

Consider the following situation. A boy tells his mother that she no longer loves him. Rather than trying to understand why the boy feels like that, a mother gets hurt and she tries to make her emotion all the more important than the child’s. She starts narrating instances to prove that her love towards him is immense. She rarely realizes that such proof confirms to the child what he actually feels and he comes to a conclusion that he is not being loved