Parenting: a real challenge

PARENTING a child is not about simply providing basic necessities like food, clothes, shelter and education to the child. It also demands an effort to understand their emotional requirements and adjust accordingly.

It is about being considerate and sensitive to the growing physical and psychological needs of the child that emerge at various stages of their growth. Children need social and moral guidance as they grow so as not to face any developmental hurdles. In this regard, parents need to provide a framework in which their children can learn to manage their lives without being exposed to growing challenges.

It is imperative that parents maintain an atmosphere in which children can develop their cognitive skills while focusing on their emotional intelligence.

When parents are overly authoritative or critical, their children suffer from lack of confidence and become filled with
self-doubt. This weakness continues to live with them hampering their progress on a number of occasions.

On the contrary, parents who react to the misbehaviour of their children by letting them see the logical consequences of their actions help them rectify themselves by discovering the difference between what is good and what is bad.

Children must be made to feel accepted and loved by their parents. Parents have daily opportunities to show their love to their children which can be shown through words and actions.

Insecurity among children, which is a natural phenomenon, can be addressed by showing concerns and adopting appropriate measures. Parents have to choose when, where and how to address different situations.

Good performance shown by the child must be rewarded as it would motivate them to produce better result next time.

Most parents are so busy that they cannot afford any time to teach their children at home.

They usually send them to coaching classes and feel satisfied if the child spends most of his evening hours there. This attitude generates a gap between the child and the parent as they hardly have any time to sit together for an informal family chat. Parenting a child is not an easy task as it exposes the parent to a host of challenges which keep emerging on various stages of the child’s developmental phase. Parents must never forget that a child learns what he lives and parents play a vital part in shaping the personality of the child and making him what he can be proud or ashamed of.