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Parenting
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It is one thing to assume maturity and hence become the initiator in
bettering things; it is another to assume arrogance and disregard the receiving
end of such initiation, especially so in a special relationship between the
parents and the children.
Therefore, it has always been on my mind to let parents hear our
voices. Parents should never need to go through the confused state of becoming
unfamiliar with their kids. Even once is one time too many for a parent to come
away wondering where has the mommy’s boy of yesterday gone to. Children don’t
change overnight- we drift, we distance, we cut off, and then we become
irrelevant, or rather we make ourselves irrelevant.
Before I go further, I want to reiterate what I used to tell me
nephew who is 7 years my junior. He’s the eldest in his family, and he felt
a lot of injustice and angst toward perceived biasness when it comes to the
treatment differences his younger brother and himself received from their parents.
My advice to him, “remember, you want to be a good son, and you are learning to
be a good son. Give your parents the benefit of doubt and show them grace: they
too are learning how to be good parents, because you are their firstborn, and
they probably had no one to teach them the 101 to good parenting. This is
mutual learning, so work together.”
Asian parents in general have the tendency to make assumptions, big
assumptions, about their own superiority. So much so that the aforementioned
basic truth is often neglected. We take the golden rule from our own childhood,
from the society, from our friends and make them into standard molds. Over
time, theses standards become the matter-of-course, and we stop remembering
that we too are still learning. Worse still, we start ruling out the
possibility that we might be wrong- that we might not have known better.
Father and mother, the child in me continually cries out for the
smoothening of relationships, and I believe that each generation should come
out and be vocal about our thoughts. Today I come out to speak on behalf of my
generation of sons and daughters, and ten years later, someone else should do
likewise, all the time.
1. Father and mother, if each of us is represented by a circle, we
children used to be a subset of your bigger circles, but as we grow up, our
circles expand, and at one point in time, we are no longer subsets. Some parts
of our circle go beyond your circles, and we become overlapping circles. You
guys will have to acknowledge at some point that you will stop having control
over the area that has ventured beyond. Point
being, fathers and mothers, you need
to learn how to let go. In a family where we are comfortable, we like to
feel empowered, and it has to start from a young age. By empowering our children,
we are subtly conveying a trust message to them. Implicitly, we are really
telling them and reinforcing in them that we believe in them. Such empowerment
can come in the form of getting the children involved in making decisions in
the family such as where to go for a family trip, what to have for dinner etc.
Letting a child have a say builds ownership, letting him feel heard builds
confidence. Coupled with explanation and guidance, we teach our children how to
make responsible decisions and how to deal with rejections. In their teenage,
this is going to be an invaluable skill set.
2. Our focus shifts as we reach a certain age. By letting go, I do
not mean neglecting us. A huge portion of delinquent became so only because we
find replacement for attention, love, belonging, all of which we feel like we
do not receive at home. Acknowledge our presence, encourage us, and praise us
if occasion calls for it. No matter how
busy parents are, surely time has to be
made for family.
3. Establish common topic, things of interest etc. Many peers within
my social circle have an unspoken unanimous admiration for families whose
parents are like friends. When we were young, we needed guidance, but
teenage is the time when we are catching up. We no longer long for someone
ahead, but someone beside. This is the age of opportunities, of possibilities,
of adventure, and a big part of this adventure is exploration. Give us the space to write our stories,
you may share in them, but if you try to dictate them, we might just eradicate
you completely from the picture.
4. Worries are not the best excuse for overstretching us. I think
what most of the parents have done for their kids is for their betterment and for their own good, but I must also say that many times the forms through which such
concern/care/love are expressed can be quite daunting. Therefore, never let societal pressure be the
motivation for any kind of actions. Yes, we continue to try to encourage
our children to work hard, but we also demonstrate our faith in Christ and His
teachings by not letting the worries of the world have a grip upon us. Life in
school is tough already; cut us some slack at home.
5. Finally, deal with our own
hurts. I can share my own testimony about this. Essentially, we are saying
that it takes one to make a conscious decision to snap out from bondages and
chains of our past hurts, especially those which we might have been subjected to in
our own childhood from our parents. Hurt parents hurt their children, hurt children
grow up to become hurt parents, whom in turn hurt their children. This forms a
vicious cycle, a generational curse, and we really don’t have to be stuck in it. We might have had
bad experiences with our father or mother, and more often than not, in not
wanting to become like them, we inevitably take on their mantle and shadow and
mirror their style of parenting. I reject that pattern, and pray for all of us
to be free.
Just keep trying: in seeing you trying, we gain strength and hope
trying on our part.
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