Influence of parents conduct on Children

Dear Archies123,

I am always here to help. Frankly, you are the best judge of your child and that is why you went to the extent of extracting truth out of him with your line of questioning as it bothered you that he was not telling the truth. If I understand correctly, there are two issues that bothered you a) His drinking a beverage that is not good for his health and b) his not telling the truth when confronted. Of the two, I would think the second one is more important than the first. Not that his health is unimportant but one beverage of that kind is not going to affect his health.

Parenting is an art and science and most of us learn from many sources a) what we had experienced as a child from our parents and b) what we see our peers do and c) what we learn from our own experience as a parent and d) what we learn from the books or other professional child psychologists. Sometimes we do make mistake in parenting but we learn from it very quickly. I have a lot of respect for your parenting skills especially when you are dealing with a child that is challenging to any parent as described in your January 25th post. Sometimes, when the cat is out of the bag, the children get bolder to test the parents more. It is my humble opinion that after establishing truth with him, you should have said, "I am so happy that you told the truth. I am very proud of you for being so honest. My intention is not to prevent you from drinking what you like but I have good reasons why I advice you not to drink such beverages. Your dad and I don't drink them because of the very same reason." You touch his consciousness when you say things like that. Children always look for appreciation from their parents. Only way the children don't do something is when they convince themselves that it is not the right thing to do. When we apply pressure on them, they keep asking the question "Why?" in their mind most often.

Imagine children as space shuttle ready to take off as they grow. When it is time for them to take off, we should let them explore the world but the control should be still with Houston and we have to train and encourage them to ask, "Houston, we have a problem". Sometimes, mistakes that they make teach them lessons as much as what parents tell them to do.

In my opinion parenting is not about making the child what we want them to be but guiding them towards becoming a fine human being. Rest will take care of itself. Every living being is a package of good and bad and he or she is constantly trying to eliminate bad and become good. During the childhood, as a parent, we are trying to plant some good conduct to the extent of our knowledge to facilitate the children to grow as fine human beings. The satisfaction has to come from within us that we are doing the best we could with the confidence that the child would become a fine human being. Once we do that we need to be satisfied and leave the results to take its own course.

To answer your specific question, my humble suggestion is not to sweat too much on one incident. Each experience and interaction is teaching something to your child constantly. Kindly monitor whether such incidents come down gradually. You are doing a fine job and if I were you, I will be very proud of myself for making painstaking efforts to guide my child.

Viswa

 

Dear Archies123,

You are most welcome. What you shared above gives me a lot of confidence that he is on a recovery path and it is amazing to know that he is fixing his own academic issues and also realizes his shortcoming and is prepared to overcome them. In my opinion, he is demonstrating great maturity and all he needs now is time. As he grows, he would become a fine young man. God bless your family.

Viswa

 

Dear Janet,

Absolutely. Education is complete not by learning but by applying what we learn. Our first and foremost education is learning from our own life. Therefore, the sweet home becomes the first school, the parents the first teachers and the lessons from experiences in life. Character building is like building blocks of lessons we learn every day from our childhood and until we live in this planet earth. This learning never stops. If the foundation is made stronger, the building obviously will be stronger.

Viswa

 

Dear Stillwaters,

Thank you for visiting this post and sharing your thoughts. This post was written by my own personal experience of what my parents did so well and what I did not do very well. It is extremely critical for parents to know how they influence their children through their behavior.

Viswa