It used to be a fortunate thing to have good children who shall keep your words and dreams; who bring pride to the family name and have a say in the world that you feel happy about. Parents used to work hard to inculcate goodness among their children. Generations used to depend on this divine bliss of having Sensible and Disciplined Children.
But, the tables are twisted now. It is no more the same equation or wish. The prayer is changed. Now we, who aren't directly related to the children, pray for some divine intervention. It has been true that now we need Good Parents who facilitate better learning and life to their children by understanding the essence of life. Parenting isn't an art. It is not even a skill. It is something in you that you improve each day because you owe this role to the child you have.
It is a fortune to have good parents. True it is. Seldom we see that the New Age Parents (Age no bar) are able to understand what for they have given birth to the child. Is it to make the child an agent or tool to fulfil their unfulfilled dreams and aspirations or do they want to earn the designation of being parents? It might seem that the new age helicopter parents do their best to micro-manage the life of their child, even after they see signs of basic human competence.
Parenting isn't a tough thing to do. It is quite an easy thing.
But when we fall for dictating and desire to design the life of another individual, according to our own perceptions and preoccupations, failure is inevitable. We change the child into the 'ward' and then the school label them as our 'wards'. Schools do not need your intervention in the classroom but they need you to understand what education is. The process needs participation than questioning or complaints.
Fortunately, now we have been able to see a thin change in the parenting community. They have started looking at the child as an individual, who isn't under their colonial rule. They have a lot to do though. The generation, not spoiled with care but ruined with coercion is a lost one. The micro-management has not done real good to the life they are left to live now. It isn't that bad in their careers but their intellect and power to learn have been conditioned to follow a limit.
Parents, especially the ones who are new to parents with their first child going to the Kindergarten classes, need to close their eyes to the million-dollar business of Aspirations and the Big Dreams.
The child you have brought to the universe is unique and shall have his or her own role to play in the cosmos. Appropriate it is to allow the flow of options and choices in education and career. Inappropriate it would be to force or limit them to these only. Unconventional ones are to be allowed to happen to them. The variety of life is based on the variety of people we have. As we move ahead to demolish the caste-community divide, our sons and daughters have a lot to see and change in a better world.
It is not just technology that is affecting our Parenting Skills. It is our reaction to modern advancements and temptations. The more we try to keep the sand in the fist, it goes against the clinching. Parents are good. Children are good. But the only good that is missing is between them. That bonhomie is the need of the hour.
This change in your mindset and the each-day thoughts about your 'ward' demand a change for good. The advice we can give to parents is that the world isn't that small as you thought of it. It is a big one with unending things to do; limitless places to travel to; gigantic libraries and carvings on the walls around. This ever-widening connected world has no other way than keeping you happy.
As we intend to bring the best to our own lives, we need to see that the coming generations have something to take from us. These are not loads of resources but loads of learning that guide them to sustain their life with goodness of heart and health of the mind. Intellectual maturity and collaborative mindset shall rescue them from millions of possible problems. Do it for your children and rais your voice not to bring revolution in the society but silently ignite a change of the way we live and learn. Put them on the path to Life Long Learning!
Don't wait. The time will never be just right. -Napoleon Hill
