Being in an age where handing out opinion and choosing ways of lives are easier than ever, AS Iyer has attempted to look into the roots that define individuals – responsibility. And with ever-busy 21st century parents, who choose to pamper to make up for the lost time with their li’l one, responsibility is a value that needs more attention than any other.
It was a cool and cloudy monsoon morning and the rain God, however, was not in a mood to bless Mumbai with showers just yet. It was a perfect opportunity to click a picture of the dark clouds that sure seemed like a silver lining after long, hot months of summer. That’s when a two-year-old appeared and demanded to listen to Sia’s Cheap Thrills – a habit she developed over the past few months. Having said‘No’ to playing the music, she threw a tantrum.
Though such demands by children are a common sight these days, one can see through the tantrum of a two-year-old, which might one day become a, ‘you-owe-me-everything’ attitude. This was perhaps because she was too pampered being the first child in the family after 20-odd years. Pampering turns bettersinto brats and we as family too can help children become better individuals of tomorrow – because who said it’s just a parent’s job anyway?!
NURTURING – NOT PAMPERING
A common misconception that most people have is that the more you give your child the more you love them. As a child, you may have been given all that you ‘demanded’, any day, any hour. But it is important to teach your children theresponsibility and accountability early in life by making them work for the things they want, not need.
But Dr Sameer Parekh, Director of Department of Mental Health and Behavioral Sciences, Fortis Healthcare saysover-giving it is not all. For starters, a permissive style of parenting which is unlikely to offer any form of discipline when coupled with parents’ endeavours to be more of a friend than a parent to the child more often than not backfires, with a higher susceptibility of behavioural difficulties for such children.
He points out another extreme style of which is of uninvolved or neglectful parents, who might not even fulfil the basic needs and desires of the children, thereby leading to disturbed attachment patterns and adverse impacts on the children’s psychological wellbeing.
So how do you walk the thin line?
