Trying hard to become a good parent is seldom a successful feat. We, as parents, keep forgetting that children only come through us and not from us. They are definitely not our subjects of experimentation. We are always unmindfully making our children the scapegoats for exercising control and venting out all unresolved issues and desires. Their questioning the ‘parent logic’ perturbs us. Such parenting definitely violates the laws of nature – of letting them grow and evolve from the limitations of their parent’s fixed mindsets.

Our effort to keep our children in a protected atmosphere keeps them dependent on us in some way or the other. We seldom think of liberating them and that is where the problem lies. What they need in us is – some good company, a friend, a conducive environment to grow and conduct themselves according to their own observations. Our behaviour will definitely reflect in them even without any instruction. So, it is important to watch our own actions and responses to situations.

We only go wrong as a parent when we ignore that one child – the one who grew with us and that is ‘The child within us.’ The discord and contention we face with our children is the result of our inability to alleviate and nurse our ‘inner self’. The early insecurities, doubts, contradictions with our own parents and worst of them all – fears that we struggle to hide from our children all our life is what we pass on.

Sadly, our children grow up inheriting the same unknowingly. This makes it very important for us to know that creating a necessary atmosphere of love and openness without entangling the intelligence of our children with self-imposed identities and prejudices is what they need.

The best way to anchor a beautiful relationship with our children is to reconcile with our ‘inner child’. This, in my opinion, will surely pave a way to raising confident and self-assured children – a generation that is definitely a better version of what we are.

Written By:- Ms. Sarika Rampal, TGT, English, MRIS-Charmwood