2) Nurturing the Ideal World Citizen: A Parent’s Handbook
This is an excerpt from my upcoming booklet by Guruspeak Self-Help series...
Every parent seems to know the rules of parenting and raising kids - Simple - Apply the same rules of your parents, Just the way they grew up under their parents!!
And in this process, most parents fail to understand their children and end up ignoring their kids needs, leading to a huge un-reversible disaster.
With the case of Aryan Khan, son of Shah Rukh & Gauri Khan celebrity parents got arrested for drugs case, its clear that there was a serious lag in parenting and upbringing by his celebrity parents. And that's got highlighted due to Aryan's celebrity status, but thats just the tip of the iceberg.
There are more than 28 suicides every day among college students in India.
The National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that 10,159 students died by suicide in 2018, an increase from 9,905 in 2017, and 9,478 in 2016. Post Pandemic children are getting more stressed. And this needs to be addressed and resolved immediately before its too late.
Performance Anxiety - Higher studies have become so stressful. Its the parents' pressure to fulfill their missed goals through their kids, and then the peer pressure. And thus leading to suicidal attempts and other depression issues among young adults of age - 18 - 25 years. To prevent these mishaps with our families, we need to have good parenting skills. And unfortunately there are courses and videos for everything except right parenting.
Guidelines for Parents:
Encourage Extra Curricular Activities - Get your kids to learn to play all types of indoor & outdoor games and participate in creative and vocational activities. The common ones are drawing, gardening, playing a musical instrument, singing, dancing, cycling, swimming and lawn tennis etc. This helps in developing a healthy body with an agile mind.
Time Management - Keep a check on your kids' activities in their spare time, specially the teenage kid. Ensure that they do not get addicted to their social media - Whatsapp, Facebook or Instagram accounts on smart phones, or play video games for long duration or pick up bad habits which would be difficult to remove at a later stage. Develop a trust model in such a way that your kids should not be hesitant to share their mobile phones for parents to check occasionally
Peaceful, Harmonious and Happy home environment - Minor fights and disagreements are common in all the families, but they should not be prolonged or leading to a terrified child, who ultimately finds it difficult to accept their parents and does not know whom to support and follow. Kids learn to be tolerant when their parents are tolerant to each other. Vacations are very important for the family bonding. Hence, at least one annual vacation is a must for parents and kids to unwind and de-stress.
Good Habit Formation - The parent or other family members (in case of a joint family) are the role model for children. Young girls are closer to their father, and young boys are more close to their mother. Your personal habits as a parent should be right in first place, to ensure that your kids pick up the right things which are mostly non verbal communication. For example - if you sleep late and wake up late, can you expect your child to sleep early and wake up early? No. Similarly if you never do yoga or exercise, then your kid will also not do it, unless they see you falling sick for prolonged periods and taking lot of medicines. If you do not read books, your child might not pick up reading books unless with other circumstances.
Device & Gadgets Management - All the kids are glued to their laptops, mobile phones and tablets, and more so with online studies during pandemic. In most of Indian cities, there are little open spaces for kids to play. And to make matters worse, kids (of all age groups and socio economic class) were unable to move out of the homes to play, go to school or meet friends in 2020 and 2021. Usage of gadgets is necessary, but, also implement some house rules, for example -
Implement a secure firewall (i.e. Dell Sonicwall is a good device) with your home WiFi connection which will not allow kids to browse or download pornography. Wifi connections could be switched off at night (i.e. between 10 pm to 6 am) so that everyone in family could leave their phones aside, and sleep well.
For your smart TV and OTT apps like Netflix, ensure they are password protected for watching adult films or series (with 18+ ratings).
Implement Google Family Link for your android phones or iPhone family settings parental controls to keep track of the usage of your child's phone. You can set family settings to ensure they have downtime on their phones, and they need to ask to buy or download any app on their phones. Set time limits for specific apps - for example Facebook, Instagram and Whatsapp can be set for a maximum of 60 mins per day and then the app will stop working for that day. Gaming apps are disabled etc.
Sex Education - During initial years of education, the kids should focus on education only and not worry about pleasing and attracting the opposite sex in their classes. Hence, for primary and secondary schools prefer an "only boys" or "only girls" while planning admissions for your child. You will notice, especially girls of co-ed schools class 9 or 10 are more self conscious about looking attractive than girls of only girls school. 18 + students can go to co-ed colleges for undergraduate and post graduate studies. Ensure that he / she has adequate information about sex and they do not clear their doubts from wrong sources on the internet or friends. Do not hesitate to talk about sex, masturbation, with your teenage son or daughter.
Unconditional Support - As a parent, please allocate atleast 30 to 45 mins everyday with your child
discussing his / her friends, studies, hobbies & interests. Parents can plan sleeping with their teenage kids on weekends is also a good idea to discuss intimate issues with them. You should know their best friends name and phone numbers. Also friends parents' phone numbers too.
Career Guidance - Uncertainty of the future prospects was always there, but with Pandemic lot of professions and careers have become irrelevant and with lower success rates. For example - event managers, live performances, etc. Pandemic has caused the maximum damage to the kids, and have forced them to rethink their career goals and options. And to make matters worse, there is no assured guidance to secure their uncertain future. The solution is to spend quality time with kids and you would gradually know the competencies and skills of your child.
Avoid default career concept - If you are a Doctor, its not implied that your child should also pursue medical science to be a doctor. Allow them to have their own choices, only guide them with the right set of information and access to proper coaching or professional guidance. To start with you must ask your child to watch documentaries of the lives of successful sportsperson, musicians, actors, and business person etc. And, you will be able to appreciate the role of their parents who inspired their kids to pursue their dreams. For instance - Discovery Plus has lot of documentaries
I remember, my father never had time for me and rarely discussed my studies, careers, or problems or offered any solutions to them. But he did not stop me from doing things I liked and happily paid for all my interests. For example - buying me books from Kolkata Book Fair. Just because we had little conversation, I was never able to forget and forgive him for his aloof and unconcerned behaviour. Ideally, both parents should talk to the school teachers and co-ordinators if they find any unusual behaviour or it could be an above average genius ability which could be further nurtured for excellence.
Teach your child early on that nothing comes free or without effort. And, this is more important for families where they are very rich and have access to the best cars and home, gadgets etc. Everyone needs to earn it by right actions.
The other tips relevant for students on diet, waking up, forgiveness, gratitude and meditation practices are shared in my booklet titled - How to reduce stress and increase bliss in your life?
Although the above tips sound easy, but they are not easy to implement in the family. We will be coming up with a series of workshops with parents on how to successfully implement the above tips. Please feel free to contact us at connect@guruspeak.in with your specific queries and issues.
These were tips for parents, now the other side of the coin - kids also need to have their checklist, we are coming up tips for Students too...
Reference -
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