Often parents are hassled because when in spite of their best efforts, children don’t seem to take responsibility for their food habits, discipline and, not to mention, studies. On top of that, they are so busy in their careers that their short interactions with the children often end up in blame-game, arguments and distress.
Today’s fast lifestyle has made the parents run for stability and they pass on their insecurity to their children. Children on the other side get overwhelmed with the demands of their parents and burden of school works and peer pressure. Many of them just give up. Instead of having expectations from themselves and losing out to them, they prefer to show themselves as small as possible so that at least when they perform little well, they get appreciation.
Parents also form definitions in their mind such as:
• My child does not listen to me
• I know he can, but he does not work enough
• My child is totally irresponsible
These kinds of definitions create the reality. To handle the child, parents sometimes use carrot stick policy, some resort to admonishments and some just show disappointments while others feed the child with fears about their impending future and worries for the same. As a result, the child and the parents live in a stressful environment. What could have been a loving and supportive relationship between the two ends up in expectations and control.
How to spiritually understand and handle this?
The relationship between child and parents is of physical stability. The parents groom the child with good education and values so that they can stand on their feet and honor the partnership thereafter by taking care of them in old age.
Spiritually it is said that the soul knows what it has to learn and do in this life. And for this it choses an ideal family. Parents on their side have to ensure that the child has all the opportunities for education and is nurtured physically with good nutrition and mentally with good values through a harmonious & nurturing environment at home.
Parents who take the responsibility of the child actually assume control of his life and the child loses its natural ability to see and plan his own life.
Life is designed to be learnt with self-realization. Only when you fall, you learn to steady yourself and only you when you do mistakes, you learn how to avoid them in future. So intolerance to mistakes and guiding the child at the slightest stumble makes him a puppet and not an intelligent being. Stressful relationships with the parents make him feel unsupported. As a result, it blocks his Muladhara Chakra. Parents who hold back their child’s material wants with conditions like ‘You will get a phone if…’ or ‘You will get pocket money when…’ cause his Muladhara Chakra of nurturing to get imbalanced.
Parents who resort to belittling, shaming their child makes him lose his sense of self-esteem and take him away from his identity. This blocks his Swadhisthana Chakra. Such a child finds hard to make healthy relationships, make his own choices or even understand life around him as he lives in a cloud of fear that ‘I am not good enough’. Such a child retorts with anger to the world and shows his indifference to everything and everyone in order to protect himself.
Grooming a child is all about trusting him, taking him as a partner, giving him a loving, nurturing environment that enhances his identity and totally letting go of all expectations and control. Initially, it may seem difficult for parents as they cannot imagine letting the child think for himself and take decisions for himself, but trust and patience pays off in the long run.
