Parenting 🚸❤️
Parenting is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood, and it is considered the most important responsibility in society because the way a child is raised today determines the kind of adult, citizen and parent he will become tomorrow.
Get anaswaraah’s stories in your inbox
Join Medium for free to get updates from this writer.
The main objectives of parenting are to ensure the child’s health, safety and survival, to prepare him for a productive adult life, to transmit family culture, moral values and discipline, and to build his self-esteem and emotional strength so that he can face challenges. Psychologist Diana Baumrind has explained four major styles of parenting, the first is authoritarian parenting where there are strict rules with low warmth and the child obeys out of fear but has low self-confidence, the second is permissive parenting where there is high love but no control and the child becomes creative but lacks discipline, the third is neglectful parenting where there is neither love nor control which is the most harmful, and the fourth and best is authoritative parenting where there is high warmth along with high control, rules are explained and the child’s opinion is heard, which creates confident, responsible and balanced children. Good parenting is based on certain essentials such as unconditional love, open communication, consistency in rules by both parents, positive discipline which means teaching not punishing, spending quality time where presence is more important than presents, being a good role model because children imitate what parents do more than what they say, and encouraging effort rather than only marks.
Moreover, good parenting also includes emotional coaching, where parents help children to name their feelings, manage anger and disappointment and develop empathy for others, which is called emotional intelligence and is more important than IQ for success in life. It also involves setting age-appropriate responsibilities like cleaning their room or helping in kitchen to make them independent and responsible, and avoiding comparison with other children because each child has his own pace and talent. Modern parents should also practice conscious parenting, which means not repeating the trauma they faced in their own childhood but healing themselves first. Parents should maintain a balance between protection and freedom, they should protect when the child is small but slowly learn to let go as the child grows, allowing them to make mistakes and learn from failure. Spiritual and moral parenting is also important to teach gratitude, honesty and kindness. In modern times parenting has become more challenging due to mobile and social media addiction, both parents working with less time for children, high academic pressure, nuclear families without grandparent support, and increasing generation gap, and if parenting is poor it can lead to low self-esteem, anxiety, aggression, poor studies and the child seeking affection in wrong company. In conclusion, there is no perfect parent, only a real parent who learns from mistakes, repairs after shouting by apologizing, and understands that the goal is not to raise an obedient child but to raise an independent, kind and resilient adult who can live without his parents but still chooses to stay close to them, because the best gift parents can give their children is roots to grow and wings to fly, and as it is said, behind every young child who believes in himself is a parent who believed first.
