Parenting – The lessons I learnt over 25 years

Photo by Simon Hurry on Unsplash

Few disclaimers:

1. I am not a perfect parent. I made my share of mistakes in the beginning and have been striving to be a better parent by keeping an open mind, regular introspection and learning everyday.

2. There is NO "One Size Fits All" even with parenting.

3. These are just my views/lessons I learnt during my parenting days. I am not expecting anyone to agree with them. In fact, If I had heard about them 10 years back from someone, I wouldn’t have agreed with most of these views.

If reading things from a different point of view upsets you, as some of my views might seem radical and little blunt (As I don't believe in sugar coating things), you should skip reading this blog.

I am done with the disclaimers now. 😊

 Few points about kids:

Let me say few points about kids before we get to the main topic.

1. Everything in life comes as dual. This is applicable to kids also. When they can give us happiness, they can also give us stress, anxiety, and/or frustration too. Part of the package. Be prepared for it. :)

2. Each kid is unique. What works for one kid may not work with the other kid. Remember "Different Strokes for different folks".

So we need to be careful while adopting our parenting style. There is no “one style suits all”. Best way is not to have any fixed style.

Start with one you find appropriate for your kid and based on the results we see (it's working or not working on our kid), we need to be tweaking it all the time until we find one that perfectly aligns with our kid's unique personality.

Remember the definition of Insanity - Doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result each time.

3. Our job as parents is "NOT" controlling but guiding and mentoring our kids. Remember kids are the pure souls when they are born and if their mind gets corrupted growing up, we, the adults, are responsible for it. It's our job to monitor how these kids are influenced by people and the surrounding environment.

4. People with higher knowledge levels should mentor the people with lower knowledge levels. These days, the younger generation knows a lot more than their parents - Thanks to Google, YouTube, internet in general. So we need to be careful when we try to give suggestions to our kids with our outdated knowledge. We need to learn to listen to our kids with an open mind and just act as a "Checks and Balances" person in their life.

5. We need to reinforce the good qualities in kids by showing our appreciation for them.

The Pygmalion Effect explains that people tend to perform up to the level that others expect of them. This effect explains why our relationships are usually self-fulfilling prophecies. Once you set expectations for somebody, that person will tend to live up to that expectation, whether it's good or bad.

If you don’t expect much from the people you work with, it’s likely you won’t inspire them to perform to the limits of their capabilities. Let them know you expect great things from them, and more often than not, you’ll find that they perform well.

6. Finally, what kids become in life has NOT much to do with what parents do (though we often take the credit when things go well :)).

 Six rules of Parenting:

These are the six rules of parenting I wrote 10 years back. I have added little more explanation to them now.

1. No screaming - Showing or executing power/authority is a sign of weakness.

Showing power is only needed when we don't have any arguments or logic to back our point. The danger with this approach is that as long as we are the provider, kids might obey us for now but would eventually lose respect for us in their heart. To maintain the loving relationship with the kids even after they are grown up, we need to maintain our respect with them, not by force as it's short lived but by leading kids by example ( being open minded, unbiased, maintaining morals and values in all situations of life).

2. Well laid out and well communicated, I repeat, well communicated rules/principles drive the decisions, not our emotions.

This will take away lot of drama in life for both parents and kids. Let's remember that "Conflicts" in life are inevitable but "drama" is certainly a choice.

3. Don't get too immersed into the details of an issue. Step back a little and look at the issue objectively from the principles/values point of view.

This is important as we can't have rules for every possible situation in life. Helps keeping the life simple.

4. Treat everyone with respect as individuals with total right on their lives.

This includes our own kids.

5. Consequences - Every action has a consequence in life and let the kids know the consequences early in life. Kids are their own bosses since they get to choose the actions and the consequences simply follow.

When we touch water, we get wet. When we touch fire, we get burnt. When we study well, we get good grades. When we do a good job, we are appreciated. When we do a bad job, we are scolded.

Every action has a consequence - Good or bad. Good actions have good consequences and bad actions have bad consequences. Same thing applies to kid's behavior at home too.

6.Questioning is welcome. Rude behavior is not.

Few parenting tips that helped me with my son:

1. Patience - while he is failing and learning - Sometimes, he made the same mistake more than once. I was fine with his making mistakes and encouraged him to learn lessons from his mistakes. I believe this knowledge is more powerful, especially at a young age and helped him in becoming a strong and highly successful guy.

2. Supporting him - I remember scolding him for minor issues but when he had major failures, I was more understanding and supporting him. (Never gave up on him).I continued showing my belief in him while he was continually proving me wrong. :)

3. Consciously tried to avoid the generation gap and kept the communication channel open by making him believe that I had an open mind, I was not biased, I was willing to try his ways.

Remember how we regain control of a car when we lose it - by steering the way we skid (trying to steer in the direction the car is going), get hold of it, and then steer it slowly back to the road. I believe that the same thing applies with our kids too.

4. Instead of judging the children’s qualities as strengths or weaknesses based on our own perceptions, looking at places where their qualities/preconceived weaknesses can become biggest strengths and putting them there so they succeed in life is the true responsibility of parents.

A quality that is undesired in one scenario might be the most desired in a different scenario. So, a quality is never bad, only the situation where we use this quality might be right or wrong. Once we, as parents, understand this and make our kids understand it, we have done our job as parents.

5. Never compare our kids with other kids. Every kid in this world is gifted in someway or the other. Our job as parents is to find those gifts and encourage our kids in the fields/areas relevant to their gifts.

6. Finally the most important one - With boys, we never know when they get their "Aha" moment (realization). It just happens. Only thing we, the parents, can do is .. wait patiently and pray to god.

At 55, I do realize now that we do not control anything, even in our own life. We can only choose our responses to whatever happens.

Issues with Parenting:

Parenting is not focusing on the kids but training ourselves to be an understanding/caring parents providing the best support to the kids during their formation years.

One of my best friend's son once complained to his teacher in elementary school that the bully was "stealing away his childhood from him". Even though it sounds funny coming from an elementary school boy, this is precisely what we do as parents when we are rubbing all our interests on our kids - stealing away their childhood.

Unfortunately, many parents are close-minded and dogmatic, remain the same even after years/decades with no introspection to become a better version of themselves.

Here are some common issues I see with parents (It includes me too).

1. Some parents are so naive that they want/are happy when their young kids act like machines or parrots following instructions ..becoming slaves to the habits/fixed patterns. They do not realize that they are killing the "Creativity" in the kids at such a young age.

2. As parents, we should play the role as enablers in the lives of our kids.

Some parents are so opinionated, and they really work hard to pass these successfully to the next generation.

I have seen many parents limiting their kids and passing all their mental blocks (such as judging actors basing on their caste/religion, not on their acting skills) successfully to their next generation.

3. Some parents (Mostly Indian parents) think that their job is done successfully if they provide a house, land, and some bank balance to their kids.

In fact, kids should never feel "Entitled". Whatever they want in life, they should work hard to earn it. Remember it's our life struggles that made us strong and tough, and taking these out of the lives of our kids is trying to make them weaker. We would rather give our kids strength and confidence to overcome life battles than completely avoiding struggles for them there by turning them completely weak and making their life purposeless.

Most of the times, the guys that haven't earned the money can't also keep their parents' money for long as they don't know the value of money and the role it is supposed to play in their lives. Money is always a means to an end but should never be an end by itself.

4. Some parents think that they own the kids just like they own the cars, house etc and they have all the rights to do whatever they want with their kids. (An extreme version is honor killing when their kids marry a person outside their caste/religion which is still common in some parts of India).

We just gave birth to the kids but we don't own them. We only have responsibility to care for them until they are ready to take care of themselves. It's our job to handhold and walk them thru life situations and teach them how to survive. Remember we ONLY have responsibilities towards our kids but NO rights on their life.

Always keep in mind that they are NOT there to live our dreams but to live their own dreams. After all, they also have ONLY one life to live. Right?

 Conclusion:

Here is a bold closing statement. In my opinion, the kids would do much better in life without the influence of the toxic and limiting parents on them.

Now, the million-dollar question. Are we one of them? It's time to introspect and see if we are being the enabler in our kids’ lives or not.