Why Parenting?
Dr. Chandana D. Karathully
No one believes how difficult parenting is until they become parents. It’s not just that they have the responsibility on their shoulders of raising a perfect human and the future of the society; it’s also because of the lack of training for equipping parents with effective skills that may aid them during difficult times. We don’t receive booklets or user manual when a child is born. We don’t know the ways for effective communication with the child, which may make or break the child’s personality. We don’t know what strategies are to be used to deal with a resistant or angry child. What just react as per our emotional state, we might yell at them, hit them or plead with them. We believe that’s the best we can do, and we pray for kid’s future!
Now let’s think about our childhood. Remember the times when we felt bad, when we felt that our parents did wrong to us, when we expected them to deal with our issues better, when we felt that we were trapped and wondered if our parents could speak more nicely, show a little bit more empathy or listen to us a little bit more. What we are today is a sum total of our genetic makeup and aftermath of our life experiences. Life experiences include childhood experiences, how our loved ones reacted and responded to our needs, attitude of our parents, how they connected to us emotionally, the quality of relationship with our siblings and friends, the role that we assumed during our childhood etc. Even if they seem trivial or forgotten, they have a huge impact on what we are today, how we respond to crises and how we think and feel during such situations. So, it is not advisable to leave such an important responsibility of parents to fate or luck to determine our kids psyche.
A lot of issues that we face today, like negative thinking patterns, responding to situations anxiously, not believing in ourselves during the times of crises, are originated from our childhood. Most of the time, such thinking patterns are learned, not acquired. Self doubt, emotional insecurity and negative self concept are destructive patterns of brain wiring that could ruin self confidence and quality of relationships. And the scary part is that, most of such wiring happens during early and late childhood. How our parents view us can impact hugely on how we evaluate ourselves. Their words about us can get imprinted on our psyche that they can turn into self fulfilling prophecies.
Thinking patterns contribute hugely to depressive and anxiety disorders. Negative thought patterns play a central role in such issues. Most of such irrational thought patterns are acquired from our surroundings. Cultural and environmental factors thus play a major role in determining the mental health and quality of life of people. And the one single construct that could bring a change in both the children and adults is parents. If they know how detrimental their ways of communication are they could bring on a change that could revolutionize our mental health.
We react to situations with our emotions. Logic doesn’t seem to work in emotionally charged moments. That’s why we yell at our loved ones and say the nasty stuff that could hurt each other. Even the most educated people struggle with regulating emotions. If we don’t know how to regulate our emotions how do our children learn about emotional resilience? We can’t blame a kid for getting angry for trivial things when he is from an aggressive household.
Issues like sibling rivalry, lack of emotional regulation in parents, emotional neglect and scholastic backwardness are to be handled by efficient professionals who have the skills and experience in analyzing and correcting faulty communication strategies among families. If our traditional knowledge is deficient in equipping us with the skills and techniques that could help us deal such situations, it’s time we learn and acquire knowledge. Every skill needs to be updated from time to time, and hence it is absolutely necessary to sharpen our parenting skills to save our children from emotional scarring that we are causing them. It’s time we take the mental health of our children seriously, it’s time we update our parenting skills to a newer healthier level!