The Heart of Parenting

BY CHIM LI YEN

Average children do things right…
No-limit children do the right thing.
- Eykis

We borrow this world from the young. We owe it to them to leave it in a better condition than when we took over. As parents and caretakers, we show our love by providing them with the opportunity to live at their highest potential in this beautiful planet we share.

What do you really want for your children? Ultimately, most parents just want their children to be happy. Other parents dream for their children to value themselves, to be self-reliant, to be stress-free, to be risk-takers, to tap into their innate creativity, to celebrate the present moment and to have a sense of purpose.

Being a parent can be a joyful and extremely rewarding experience. Your child can teach you just as much as you teach them. It is being open to this mutual learning which makes parenting a true spiritual experience.

Children treated as divine creations sense their connection to their true selves and treat others with the same divine consideration. They recognise and honour the sacredness of life. Heightened awareness is available to every child whose parents know in their hearts what they truly want for their child.

There have been tremendous changes in the world as we see it now from what it used to be during our childhood. Today, children have access to a barrage of free information on the Internet which can be a double-edged sword to young, impressionable minds. Contemporary social problems among children such as suicides, violence in schools, teenage pregnancies and drug abuse have skyrocketed over the years.

Behind this deterioration lie deeper issues. To make ends meet, it is common that both parents have full time jobs leaving them less time to spend with their children. Nobody is at home to hold the receptive energy of the feminine which is unconditional love, nurturing and acceptance for the children. The nest is empty and the children are off somewhere in cyberspace entertaining themselves in their virtual world. Fill the void created by absent parents with the ridiculous amount of sex and violence available on television, video games, films and the Internet and we have a time bomb waiting to explode.

Children go to places where there is a promise of acceptance and belonging, however superficial that promise may be. If the Internet chat room or the gang or the clique offers that sense of belonging, they will automatically head towards that direction.

These are hard times for children, and also for parents. Parents have to be smarter about teaching their children emotional and social lessons. We need to reclaim the spiritual in our lives and create an atmosphere in which children are valued and treated with respect. Becoming more present in the lives of your children is the best way to increase the depth and scope of parenting.

Every parent knows the importance of equipping their children with the intellectual skills they need to succeed in school and life but children also need to master their emotions. Emotional intelligence is to understand and handle one’s emotions gracefully.

Science has discovered that emotions play a crucial role in our lives and emotional intelligence can determine one’s success and happiness. Failure to learn the basics of emotional intelligence is trouble. Research has shown that girls who fail to distinguish feelings like hunger and anxiety are at risk for eating disorders, while boys who are unable to control their emotional impulses may be at risk for delinquency and violence. Inability to cope with stress and depression increases the likelihood of drug and alcohol abuse.

An emotionally intelligent child is more confident, physically healthier, do better in school and grow into emotionally healthy adults. He becomes an adult who is able to delay gratification to achieve goals and desired outcomes. He has great enthusiasm for life and feels a sense of belonging to the world.

Daniel Goleman writes in his best-seller Emotional Intelligence, “Family life is our first school for emotional learning. In this intimate cauldron, we learn how to feel about ourselves and how others will react to our feelings, how to talk about these feelings and what choices we have in reacting. We learn how to read and express our hopes as well as our fears. This emotional schooling operates not just through the things parents say and do directly to their children but also in the way the parents handle their own feelings and between husband and wife. Some parents are gifted emotional teachers, others atrocious”.

The key to successful parenting is not found in complex theories, convoluted formulas for behaviour or strict family rules. It is based on your deepest feelings of love and affection for your child, demonstrated simply through your empathy and understanding.

Next week, we will continue with identifying the different parenting styles and the effects on the children.