Relationships are multi-dimensional to the degree that one relationship can influence another relationship. In a fast-paced world we may have experiences in our short lives that others, before us, have experienced in their extended lives. Sadly, the worst of influencers are those who seek to advise on social media while they only transfer their negative experiences onto others.
Parents have to deal with their own relationships. They have set themselves on a path to rear their kids in the best possible manner. However, a wise man once said that we cannot rear our kids the way we were reared but rear them for the era in which they will live. This does not mean that we cannot learn from our own experiences as children, but it is important that the age in which the children are growing up are taken into consideration. There is never a more difficult time than now for parents as technology and the pace at which it is developing are matters that many parents have not seen much of, if any, in their own childhood. The two friends that you had all through your childhood and even have today, are now hundreds, if not thousands for our children who are exposed to social media. Furthermore, laws have changed and may be relaxed on matters that the older folk find alarming. Television where we have hundreds of channels while we were exposed to, at most, a handful of channels. And the list of differences continue.
Broadly, there are three types of parenting. One is strict, one is easy and one is in-between. This will be a topic on its own at another time. Fast forward to the crux of this note. Whatever your method of parenting, it is the message that must be more important. Some will argue that children must always be grateful to their parents for their many sacrifices. This is all well and good, but that last memory of you being a “bad” parent lingers in the mind of the child and is reinforced by the negative influences around them. The idea therefore is not to play on their emotion of their relationship with you as the parent. Rather it is more important for them to understand the emotion of looking out for themselves. Thus, the guidance must be such that they remove all relationships, including their peers, and consider themselves. They may yet make a mistake, but the idea is for them to understand the morals which will make a good human being. The good human being does not waste away his/her life and gives into short term pleasure easily. The good human is one who does well with his/her life and gives back to others.
We shelter our children, on the one hand, to the extent that we smother them while others are so easy that a little bit of smother will actually be helpful. There’s room for both if we can understand but the idea is to nurture an ideal human being, neither a robot nor a slave to misguidance.
picture – courtesy : https://www.nytimes.com/guides
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