GOOD PARENTING

GOOD PARENTING Equip Your Children for Life PARENTING or child rearing is the process of promoting and supporting the physical, emotional, social, financial, and intellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood. We all are familiar with the following maxim: To be born with a silver spoon, in reference to a child born in an affluent family. Favoured children are frequently less successful in their lives than those who have failed to find favour from their family. Favour is only another name for pampering. There is a better alternative for parents rather than giving favour; it is to give their child self-confidence. A non-favoured child is also a favoured child, but in a different sense; he has the selfconfidence and incentive to work hard. If you love your child and in all situations you are ready to provide him with help, that means you are making your child happy but with a side-effect; it will lessen the spirit of confidence in the child. Self-confidence is the best gift parents can give their children. Parents cannot be with the children all through their life like shadows. Children as they grow have to face life with all the challenges it poses. Good parenting is to train your children to develop self-confidence to the extent that they may stand up to the challenges of life, especially in the later period of their lives. That kind of parenting is good which proves to be effective in their future and that kind of parenting is bad which has untoward results. It is not inside the home that parenting may be judged good or bad. It is outside the home that parenting must be judged. That parenting which proves effective outside the home is good parenting. Parenting is a complex task. Parents have great love for their children. That is but natural, but as far as their children’s future is concerned, love alone is not enough. Love often turns into pampering their children. And over-providing is not good parenting. That can make a child too easy-going. He may shirk hard work and this tendency could stop his future development. Good parenting calls for living between two opposites: on the one side being soft and on the other side being strict. Parents have to be both subjective and objective in their behaviour towards their offspring. Parents are almost always emotional towards their children. But according to the law of nature, emotional behaviour may not prove