Knowledge
Parents need to be aware of how to motivate and guide children to recognise and pursue their interests.
Parents become more ambitious and fill up all the space available with the child. So the child goes to schools, practices swimming, goes for tuitions, learns music and studies at home. The parent wants to put so many things that there is no vacant space in the child’s life…
Parents need to be aware of how to motivate and guide children to recognise and pursue their interests. I will try to summarize some of the highlights from my books ‘Love Your Kid’ and ‘Go To Hell Or Come To Me’, to show how we could draw out the best from our children.
1. Have conversations: The art of talking to kids is important for parenting. As the child grows, the meaningfulness of the conversations too increases. But conversation is more important. The engagement itself gives the child a lot of scope for expressing his feelings and also strengthens the belief that his views are listened to. In these conversations, there has to be a lot of listening to be done by the parent instead of butting in and imposing his view on the child.
2. Let them be as they are: Every parent wishes to see his or her reflection in his child. But every human being is different and this process of conditioning the child to our wishes and desires is counterproductive because it does not match with the inherent nature of the child. Such conflicting impositions lead to trauma and sometimes growth of submissive personalities which is detrimental in future. In case of non-submission there will be conflict at teenage when the child rebels and there is dissonance in the family.
3. Openly show appreciation: This is a very crucial factor that motivates the child to achieve more if the interests and abilities that he or she displays are appreciated. We clearly show our displeasure in things that we don’t like in what they do, but we seldom show appreciation for the abilities or interests that they possess irrespective of our liking or disliking. A bird’s eye view needs to be taken of their lives so that the parent sees not just the son or daughter but also the peer group member, school student and the other roles that the child plays. We see our children mostly from a single perspective; hence the discord.
4. Show him the way: Lecturing the child to do this or that is easy for the parent but the child understands that it’s plain lecture without action so the seriousness of its impact is questioned. Instead, if the parent shows something by action, the child would love to follow it or take things more seriously. If you ask the child to put his bag in place after coming from school, he is also observing if you keep things in place when you come from the office. Though he may not openly say so, the impact of your pronunciations is reduced if it is not followed by motivating actions.
5. Let the emotions flow: As a kid, we as parents are more open about our emotions. The child feels the warmth but as the child grows, we try not to show our emotions too openly. Our child is our child. The touch plays a very important role in communication of emotions. While words play an important role, touch communicates without any word being said. And in teenage, children want the warmth more than ever. So a hug is very comforting when the child comes back from school. Too many words after the tired child is home makes the child shut down his attention and what we say falls on deaf ears. Just that little show of emotion is enough to show that we are with them.
6. Give space: Parents become more ambitious and fill up all the space available with the child. So the child goes to schools, practices swimming, goes for tuitions, learns music and studies at home. The parent wants to put so many things that there is no vacant space in the child’s life and feels satisfied that the life of the child is focused. It is necessary that we allow the child a space every day to breathe, introspect, interact, reflect and understand his life. He should be enjoying what he is doing and it should not be done just to fill up the time.
7. Show them to accept failures with dignity and success with humility: Life is full of failures and successes. If, as a parent, we cocoon our children from failures and tom-tom their successes, a false sense of ego will penetrate the child’s brain. He believes he is what is not. So it is necessary that we expose our children to failures so that they learn to accept them and be motivated to do better in future. On the other hand, the child should accept success with humility and remain grounded. This will help him in future. This is life.
About the Author:
Dr Jawahar Surisetti is a psychologist and educationist of international repute whose 1300 + speeches, seminars and workshops have been heard by lakhs of people around the globe.
He is known worldwide as the Think Professor for his ” Art of Thinking ” and his ” Think for India ” movement for introduction of thinking in education.
This article was originally published in the Anniversary (August 2017) issue of ScooNews magazine. Subscribe to ScooNews Magazine today to have more such stories delivered to your desk every month.