Do not counter your parents.
Dalip Singh Wasan, Advocate.
People may believe that they have been sent on this earth by God Himself and we go back when He recalls us. But at the same time we shall have to accept that we have come here on this earth through our parents and up till now, we could not see a person who has come on this earth directly from God. Even the people who have got some place in mythologies and in history and who had been founding religions and had been telling us that they are God had come on this earth through their parents and none has come directly from the side of God. That is the reason in Hindu Shastras, it has been admitted that parents are above all and none on earth can have a place equal to parents.
Time is going on and we, who had started from stone age are now talking to the skies. In other words, what the parents could not do, their children are doing that. But still the children must understand that they had not come and they were not with all the wisdom, intellect and competency at their command when they were born. Their parents had been looking after them and they had been bringing them up. The parents had been saving him or her when there was cold, when there was hot and when they were wet or were lying in wet and dirty bed. The man knows that he starts caring for himself only when he comes in the age of 10 years or more and even at this stage, he is not in a position to earn and can provide himself for all the facilities which are required for proper development.
If one has an introspection, he shall come to the conclusion that he would no have survived had their been no parents or others to look after him or her. We all know that we need proper education, proper training, proper adjustment in life, proper earning and then we are to marry and settle a house. And lucky are those who have got parents and they could get all help from the side of their parents. The people who have got no parents because the parents died earlier or they had been lost in crowds, never get the same psychology as a normal child could get through parents. The child who got no parents to look after him or her remains all alone in life and he never feels that he has got someone to protect him or her.
The child is compensating his or her parents and therefore, there are chances that he or she would be having more education, more training, more wisdom, more intellect, more income and a higher status in society and in the work place, but still he is not better than his or her parents and therefore the child must keep in mind that he shall not compare himself or herself better than his or her parents. He must be thankful to his parents who could provide him facilities through which he could achieve these heights and should never counter his parents. We, the people of India know the story of Shri Rama who left his house only because his father had directed him to leave the house and even his rights to have the throne. It means, the order of the parents should be followed and no child should say that the order from the side of his or her parents is wrong and therefore, he would not follow that order.
You may carry out the order of your parents or you may not carry out the order of your parents, but one thing should be taken care of that you should not refuse to carry out the order of your parents at their face and tell them that they are in the wrong. The parents are not in a position to bear all this because they are living only with one hope in their mind that their children are obedient and they shall be carrying out the orders of their parents. This psychology and wish of the parents must be kept alive and the parents should fee proud of the fact that their children are advancing.
We must understand that all in the world other than the parents may feel jealous when we are rising, but the parents shall feel happy and shall pray for your more success. If we can pray for others, we must locate our parents who can pray for us and would always desire that we should go ahead and we should win all the ventures we have undertaken. Even your brothers and sisters may be having some love for you but still there are chances that they may not feel pleasure when you are rising higher and higher and sometime they may be having some property disputes with you. But your parents shall not be sad when you are rising. They shall be happy and they shall be proud of the fact that you are rising and rising higher in life.
So when we are allotting status and position to others, we should have more care when we have a look on our parents and they should be placed still higher and when we are doing all this we should not expect thanks from our parents. We are just doing something to repay the debt and we are not creating a debt against5 our parents. We are nobody to repay the debts which the parents have established against us and we may take thousands of such births, but still we are not in a position to clear the debts. So it is our duty to ensure that we are to say ‘yes my dear father, yes my dear mother’ and nothing more. No reasons and no explanations should be placed before parents nor we should try to establish before our parents that we are having more qualifications, more money and a higher status. We are still low and we should keep this position till our parents are alive and even after their dearth, we should not try to say that they had been in the wrong. They are right, they were right and they shall be right should be the lifelong idea with us.
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Archive for the ‘Parenting’ Category
Do not Counter your Parents
Saturday, July 31st, 2010Developing Co Parenting Skills: Working Together To Raise Happy Kids
Saturday, July 17th, 2010Co-parenting isn’t easy. It’s actually quite a chore. When neither parent is willing to negotiate or communicate, the child has the job of transitioning from one parenting style to the other. As a parent educator and family therapist, I have seen many anxious and confused children affected by their parents’ inconsistent rules and styles. Sometimes children do this under the same roof and sometimes under two, but the bottom line is that it is the parents’ responsibility to create a balance.
Parenting skills vary much like personalities. The differences can be as subtle as the setting of bedtimes to as serious as choosing consequences for bad behavior. The bottom line is adults have a number of motivations for parenting. For instance, they might try to do better than their parents. Thus, we attempt to find new and effective strategies to raise good kids. These ambitions can be difficult enough. Now add the challenge of joining forces with another adult who was raised by different parents and who may be select different strategies.
So how do parents, married or divorced, stay clear and consistent, raise confident children, and feel influential as parents? They learn how to work together and become better co-parents! Here are several successful co-parenting steps:
Identify your personal style and motivations. Your first job in becoming a successful co-parent is to figure out your general style and motivations. If it were all up to you, how would you parent? How would you motivate your children? How would you use punishment and encouragement? What are the top 10 values you would like to teach your kids? Now ask yourself WHY? Why would your style be that way? What is your motivation? How did your parents parent you? Are you attempting to repeat their upbringing or compensate for it? Share your parenting style and motivation with your co-parent. I understand that you might feel vulnerable sharing your style and motivation. Your style may be different than your spouse’s style. In order for you and your partner to co-parent successfully, you both need to appreciate and support the ideas you bring to the table. When you listen to where the other parent is coming from, it will allow you to join forces. Before deciding on a parenting style and direction, consult parenting books and classes. Now that you have looked at each other’s parenting style, take a look together at good parenting books and the current research. Report back to each other and consider how your styles measure up. Decide on a parenting style. You now have several examples of parenting strategies and philosophies. Its time to blend what you believe with what your co-parent believes and what the experts say. This is the ultimate in negotiation but remember that if you do not negotiate at the adult level, it leaves your child to figure it out. Once you’ve decided, then write down the basics and embrace your new co-parenting style. Implement your new co-parenting style. Now you parent! Both parents are on the same page. Children are clear on what is expected of them and what the consequences are if they do not follow the family expectations. Thus, it lessens the occasions of arguing between the parents and the opportunities for manipulation by the children. Hold weekly co-parenting meetings with your spouse. Since you are the CEOs of your family and are business partners in a very real way, you must stay in constant communication. The success or failure of your family rests in your capable hands. Thus, co-parenting meetings are a must! These meetings should include finances, home maintenance, parenting, and relationship issues. Meetings should be held weekly with schedule book, meeting journal and budget book in hand. Continue to review your parenting style. You may find that one child thrives under your new system while another loses balance. Good co-parents always re-evaluate and restructure when necessary.
We are busy parents today. It is difficult to take the time to evaluate our parenting styles but the payoff is big for you as a parenting unit as well as for your child. Co-parenting takes the pressure off our children and the conflict out of our lives.
Copyright 2008 Parent Education Group – Reprints Accepted – Two links must be active in the bio. The article homepage: http://www.familyauthority.com/articles/family-day.html
Parent’s Involvement in Children’s Education
Sunday, July 11th, 2010ABSTRACT
The importance of parental involvement as an accelerating and motivating factor in their children’s education is a worldwide-accepted fact. This research project provides an in depth explanation along with specific reasons, the importance of parents’ involvement in their children’s education. It also discusses the parenting techniques, their types and their consequences if neglected. It also describes the ways to measure the outcome of the positive parental involvement. Furthermore, it mentions the teachers involvement and the difficulties faced by the teachers in getting parents involved in their children’s (this is further supported by the examples of two teachers who with their deliberate efforts won the parents over to devote their maximum attention towards their children), single-parent involvement, children’s own efforts to improve their academic levels and joint home-school based interventions. A detailed analysis of the different main ideas is given, based on the findings from other research surveys and projects.
INTRODUCTION:
Parental involvement can be seen to fall into three types: 1) Behavioral, 2) Intellectual and 3) Personal. The research explores the effect of multi-dimensional participation of parents and the resulting progress of children in their studies when different parental resources were dedicated to them. Actively participating parents help their children in their academic development by going to schools and participating in open houses. By keenly observing the behavior of their children they can rightly judge the kind of behavior or the allocation of resources required by their children. Such caring parents can also motivate teachers to become more attentive towards a particular student, thus maintaining the cycle of parent-teacher involvement. Encourage Building up cognitive and perception abilities in a child are a major concern in the upbringing of the child. The way the parents involve their children in cognitive learning is by exposing them to different cognitively stimulating activities and materials such as books, electronic media and current events at home. This helps the child to practice all sorts of language comprehending skills at the school. The results show a remarkably positive behavior at the school and with peers.
Two parenting processes namely the Supportive Parenting (SP) and Harsh Parenting (HP) helped a lot in the research of parental involvement in their children’s education. By adjusting the levels of supportive parenting, different levels of successful outcomes were observed. Supportive parenting in even kindergarten students yielded positive results. Four measures of supportive parenting were used in the study, they were:
1. Proactive teaching.
2. Calm discussion in disciplinary encounters.
3. Warmth.
4. Interest and involvement in peer activities.
The assessments were conducted when children entered kindergarten and when they reached grade 6. There was a factor noted to hinder children’s development: family adversity. It was the result of a multipurpose negative process that included the risk of low socio-economic status, single-parenting and family stress. Child maladjustments were found to be more common in families with such adversities. No matter how much negative impacts were cast, SP was found to overcome the risks associated with family adversity. SP was strongly related to adjustment procedures in grade 6 children who had single parent family or experienced low socio-economic status (SES) in their early childhood.
In a way to socialize their children, parents adopted the techniques of calm discussion and proactive teaching. They helped lessen the behavioral problems by carrying long discussions with their children, cultivating in them a sense of respect, calmness and peace of mind. Mothers also participated actively in reducing the peer stress among their children. It is also a widely accepted fact that supportive parenting plays an important role in the children’s development of empathy, prosocial behavior and emotional competence. On the negative side, the absence of supportive parenting may be related to the development of internal problems such as anxiety and depression.
Lack of the necessary parental care and attention is the main factor for the subsequent rise in the percentage of juvenile delinquency (crime among children). The absence of parental instructions causes children to develop irreversible behavioral and emotional problems. They in order to seek attention, resort to crimes thinking that in this way they could fulfill their wishes. They may revert to uncontrolled violence if not kept an eye upon. Such criminal activities cannot be brought to a halt until their distressing symptoms of low self-esteem, depression, dysphonic mood, tension and worries, and other disturbances are relieved. And the importance of parents’ role in this regard cannot be over-emphasized.
In an effort to describe parental involvement, many researchers use a term “Transition”(Lombardi, Joan). “Transition” is used to describe the time period in which children move from home to school, from school to after school activities, from one activity to another within a pre-school, or from pre-school to kindergarten. The untiring endeavors of teachers in the phenomenon of transition cannot be ignored. They prepared the children and their parents to face the problems of adjusting to elementary school programs that had different psychology, teaching styles and structure than the programs offered at the kindergarten level. In the elementary level schools the teachers had to face serious challenges in motivating the parents to take interest in their children’s activities. The teachers adopted different methods to involve the parents in day-to-day classroom and home activities. They used to send notes, invitation of parent-teacher meetings, invitation of parental guidance sessions and training sessions, continuously directing the parent’s attention towards their children. Patricia Brown Clark suggests that it is very important to keep the line of communication between teachers and parents open, so that the parents can interact with the teachers and get up to date information of their children’s school activities. One way to involve parents is to schedule school events and arranging classroom activities such as volunteering for libraries, acting as classroom aides or efficiently organizing lunch breaks. The teachers also opt for making phone calls at the children’s houses to keep in touch with the parents and getting to know the extent to which they are contributing towards the welfare of their children. Apart from the above activities, the teachers also assign home activities for both the parents and their children so that the parents remain indulged in their children and the children get to study at home. However, it was a bad and disappointing experience for the teachers when many of the parents failed to respond as expected. Many of the parents were so overwhelmed with their official work that they could hardly take out some time for their beloved children.
Moreover, for some parents their schoolings were not positive and character-boosting experiences, therefore they preferred to keep a distance from their children’s school as well. This made it really difficult and at times impossible for teachers to bring the parental involvement to the desired level. Nevertheless, the activities of two teachers proved greatly fruitful in making parents involved in their children. They were Carlos Valdez, an art teacher and 8th grade class sponsor, and Mike Hogan, the school’s band director. They did it by involving parents in music festivals and other school ceremonies. They proved to be great examples for the future teachers to come.
If the children’s academic development programs are to prove successful they must share two characteristics:
1) Developmentally appropriate practice:
A child’s academ
ic progress is clearly reflected by the appropriate practice he/she administers while in school life. During transitions from pre-school to kindergarten, a child if given the exact developmentally appropriate practice tends to learn a great deal of language and playing skills. He develops a keen interest in exploring his environments and interacting (without hesitation) with his adults.
2) Supportive services:
These include the assistance that the school provides to low-income family students. The services include health care, childcare and community care. This strengthens the relation between school and children and creates a sense of security and confidence among the children. They get to learn that their communities are a part of their school since the school’s supportive services strive to help community development.
It is commonly believed that children are good self-teachers. Their self-initiated strategies help improve their expression, creativity, intellectual capabilities and extra-curricular skills. This idea is proved by the documentation of young children’s work provided by Reggio Emilia :
“The Reggio Emilia educators highlight young children’s amazing capabilities and indicate that it is through the unity of thinking and feeling that young children can explore their world, represent their ideas, and communicate with others at their highest level.”(Edwards, Pope. C, Springate, Wright.K)
The climax rests in the fact that how the parents would know that their sincere involvements are really proving worthwhile for their children. The answer lies in the attitude of the children. The degree of parental involvement can be judged by a child’s attitude towards his school subjects, his academic desires and achievements. There is a direct relationship between academic achievements and the attitude towards school. Schunk in 1981 had the following idea of aspiration or academic desires:
“Level of aspiration is defined as one’s subjective probability that he or she will reach a certain level of education.”(Abu, H. & Maher, M)
As a result children who received adequate parental concern were found to be much more confident in their academic desires and achievements than those who could not get the right amount of parental concern. The individual involvement of mothers and fathers also plays a vital role in the behavioral development of a child. Students from one-parent household were observed to show less positive attitude towards schools and studies as compared to students from two-parent households. One study aimed at investigating parental concern showed that despite mothers’ sincere endeavors, the role of fathers could not be ignored and both served as an important foundation for the future progress of the child. This can be proved from the following fact:
According to a recent report from the National Center for Educational Statistics (1997), compared to their counterparts, children with involved fathers are more likely to have participated in educational activities with their parents (e.g., to have visited a museum or a historical site with their parents in the past month), and are more likely to have access to multiple types of resources at home as well (as measured by the proportion of parents who belong to community or professional organizations, or regularly volunteer in the community). (Flouri, E. And Buchanan, A, Pg.142)
Also, the parental involvement has been discussed and implemented in terms of interventions or prevention programs, which are nothing but safety measures taken to assure healthy and perfect upbringing of the child. The study uses school-based and home-only intervention programs to find out the extent of intellectual capabilities found in children from different family backgrounds. The success of one school-based interventions can be proved from the following fact, which was a part of “Education Service Improvement Plan 2001-2005” of Edinburgh:
—-The Scottish Executive Discipline Task Force, which studied the causes of poor behavior among pupils in schools produced a report of ‘Better Behavior – Better Learning’ in June 2001. The report included 36 recommendations for action, which were then turned into an Action Plan in 2002. Many of these have implications for the Education Authority. (Craig Millar Instep Project)