Raising Confident Kids: The power of Positive Parenting

PTMs (Parent-Teacher Meetings) were fairly a regular feature to me as a parent and also a teaching professional. Many a time such meetings, especially the ones with many meaningful discussions on positive parenting unravelled several unnoticed aspects of parenthood to us. Though parenting had always been an organic and instinctive process to me, numerous interactions with students, parents, and teachers coupled with my experience as a parent have surely helped me develop an all-new perspective on the subject.

We all, irrespective of our social and economic backgrounds, want the best for our children. But many of us fail in its execution, not in intent. While wishing the best for their future, we often start measuring them on our yardstick. That’s why after punishing them or yelling at them for one reason or another, we often look at those cherubic faces while they are asleep and overwhelm ourselves with guilt and remorse. Is then correcting our children wrong or uncalled for? The other day I was reading a story about two gardeners. One of them poured just enough water and manure on his plants. His plants looked good. The other person took care of his plants with gallons of water and tons of manure. His plants looked resplendent and luscious. But one fateful night there was a devastating storm. The next morning when both the gardeners entered their gardens, the man who took extra care found all his plants uprooted and fallen on the ground. To his utter surprise, he found his neighbor’s plants all alive and thriving. His neighbor explained how by getting just enough water, the roots of his plants had to find more nutrients from the soil. Their roots went deep into the soil and could hold them in place at the time of the storm. The fuller and better-looking plants on the other hand never faced any need to fend for themselves. As a result, they could not face the sudden throes of adversity. So, parenting is a tricky job. To get it right one has to go through many trials and errors on the job.

Want to know the dos and don’ts of good parenting? Any books on parenting, available online or offline, will tell you that. The problem lies in its efficacy in the application. Instilling good habits like good eating and sleeping habits, the importance of hygiene, and discipline to avoid future health problems is important. The only other important thing to remember is the method of communicating it to them. Here the process becomes more nuanced and subjective. The rule of thumb for parents is to practice what they preach. If a parent who spends most of the day on the phone, asks the child not to use the phone, the kid most likely would ignore such instruction. In other cases, a child may throw tantrums even after repeatedly reminding him/her of the task at hand. What would the parents do then? The answer is, in my view, to find a middle ground. We, as parents need to remember that winning every battle with your child, or with anyone per se is not always important. The goal is to instil the right value and get the desired behaviour from your ward. After shouting at or hitting your child you may temporarily get the expected behaviour from your child and that might give you a momentary sense of winning, but then the child goes away with a wrong lesson thinking being angry and hurtful is the solution to all problems.

It's thoroughly understandable that parents are but human and they are bound to make mistakes. To expect them to be perfect would be an outlandish expectation. What parents can do is, they should solve their life issues first, before coaching their young ones. To raise an emotionally stable child, we need emotionally mature, strong-willed parents. Studies have proved that most children exhibit the qualities like emotional maturity, resilience, tolerance, patience, and discipline if they grew up seeing these qualities through the behaviours of their parents.

The job of positive parenting is not child’s play, though it is an achievable goal if kept as a topmost priority. Good parenting makes responsible future citizens. Studies have proven that positive parenting determines the happiness quotient and self-esteem of an individual during childhood and adulthood. The children of positive parents grow up to be more socially adjustable, emotionally resilient, and culturally tolerant individuals.

So the choice is ours. If we want to rear our children strong and resilient - physically, emotionally, and intellectually, we, as parents need to work on ourselves first. No noble task is accomplished without hard work and perseverance. Good parenting is such a task. Positive parenting ensures not only a good daughter or son, but it’s also a gift to society, a service to mankind.