Behind every child who believes in themselves is a parent who believed in them first!!

In this age of information overload where we are everyday bombarded with lots of information about everything right from what to eat, what to wear, how to behave, so on and so forth, we are mostly confused about even those aspects which otherwise seem very natural and trivial to us. Parenting is one such thing which has been very familiar to us. For generations together, it was thought that marriage is a gate pass rather pathway to parenthood. And once you give birth to a child, you automatically transform into an expert parent yourself or are trained by other “experts” in your family or relatives. And kids grew up in no time without any special efforts from anyone. Now, as the whole scenario of families, relationships, marriages and child births are changing, we can not go ahead with the age old practices of parenting.

I would not say the age old parenting practices were useless but they weren’t foolproof either, because we wouldn’t be having so many broken adults around if they were flawless. We carry our childhood experiences with us in adulthood and they greatly influence our lives and parenting styles unless thoughtfully worked upon our belief systems. If these belief systems are not consistent with today’s world, we create many problems with upbringing of our children. So, ‘learning parenting’ here actually means looking at the world our children are living in through their eyes by keeping aside our prejudiced specs. Because even if we are older, it doesn’t mean we know it all!! Moreover, our age as parents is always equal to our child’s age so we also are taking baby steps with our child as parents.

It’s true that times have changed but changing times doesn’t negate the role of family and social support systems in the parenting journey. In fact, the Japanese saying “It takes a village to raise a child” still holds true. When we adapt a view of ‘handling our problems on our own’, we often feel lost and frustrated. So, we need to come together, have discussions, work out some strategies, modify them to suit our kids, try them out, share our small wins as well as funny blunders while using them with our children with fellow parents , and keep experimenting with different options all throughout the journey. Afterall, there is no perfect strategy for parenting because some things work, some times to some extent.

The point that parents are the ones who need to change themselves before trying to change kids is often criticized but the fact that you can only change yourself and not others still holds true also with children. At least, we have an advantage here that kids often follow or imitate their parents, so why not set a good example. Its neither about restricting our children from everything nor about letting them completely free at their will but the recipe to happy parenting is using both these strategies as required. And an important note to conclude; you are not responsible for everything your child does, whether good or bad, so no need to feel guilty or doubt yourself. Just be aware and get back on the track whenever you slip off! Remember, happy parents raise happy kids!!

Your children may become what you are; so be what you want them to be!!