Are you the Right Parent?

PARENINTG IS A BIG RESPONSIBILITY

Excuse my saying so, but not everyone who is a parent always deserves being one. We have training for everything in this world, for being a doctor, engineer, and teacher, even for plucking your eyebrow. You would go to the best of the professionals and tailors, but poor babies have no choice to be born to the best of the parents. Ah! What an allegation you would say, we are excellent parents; we give our kids all kinds of facilities and luxuries that we ourselves never had. But don’t you think there is much more involved in bringing up healthy citizens of the future world? Child rearing is a tight ropewalk and not every one does it perfectly.

Why are you getting to hear all this gyaan suddenly today? I happened to be a part of a National Seminar at Patiala last week; the topic was Media, Parents and Children. To my amazement everyone blamed the media for being too irresponsible in doling out all sorts of content to the impressionable minds. The youngsters were equally bashed for being materialistic, disobedient and non-respectful. What pinched me was the missing concern to the central link – the parents. It is always de stressing to shift the blame. A good defense mechanism to say that the films are violent, television infidel, internet porn, videogames defiant, comics uncultured, advertisements greed promoting, and the consumer to all this, the children bundles of tantrums. Great. If all that the idiot box churns out is crime stories, why don’t you keep your toddler away from it? Busy working guardians substitute it for a baby sitter and then resent it when their off springs turn couch potatoes. I have seen many parents with kids in laps claiming proudly, my baby is fond of Mallika Sherawat, he prefers Coke to water, she does not wink a lid till the TV plays in the background. Wonderful. Then the same people would come back with teenagers gone astray and ask with broken hearts, why did my child turn this way? Why don’t you ever ask yourself, what went wrong in my parenting? When as a counselor, I question them if they spend time with their child, they say yes we watch the Television together. Woo. That’s it. Not many parents realize that their role is much above providing the food, shelter and clothing. They have to teach their off springs to be media literate. Maybe it is wrong to blame them entirely. They at times don’t know what to do and how to do it.

Let me briefly orient you towards the needed practices. To control the time spent in front of the tube you may resort to solutions like diary keeping, covering the TV, having a TV free family night, giving interesting alternatives to the kids, playing carem or Antrakshari with them instead or even pushing the box out of your homes. Healthy Internet habits may be cultivated by keeping the computer in a common place, becoming partners in the usage, not leaving gaps in knowledge that you child feels tempted to know from the web. You must always prescreen what your child is reading or watching. Clean their room off the violent games, cards or Cds. After all you are the parent and you are expected to know better. But, this does not give you the green signal for being autocratic. There are various parenting styles and research shows that nagging and even over caring parents rear defiant and indecisive kids. Help your child sift through the media content, aid him in developing the understanding of what to do and what not to practice. If the child is made a party to the decision making process and taught the pros and cones, he is likely to form into a well informed person who can decipher right from wrong. Don’t just snatch away the Naagraaj comic, put a good book in their hands as a better substitute. Give them options to develop more healthy interest and better habits.

Parenting afterall is a big responsibility and the trick lies in knowing the correct ways to nurture the angels the God has blessed you with. Next time before you blame the little ones, spare a minute to give a thought to your own way of rearing them.