Wednesday 30 May 2018

Parental Skill

As parents, no matter how old our child gets, it is quite often the case that we cannot look at them any differently than we did when they were little critters running about the house and causing mayhem. Our inherent drive to nurture and provide for our children pushes us to be protective regardless of whether they are three or twenty-three. However, sustained protectiveness might actually be doing exactly the opposite of what we want it to do; the ways in which these parental tendencies manifest may actually be scuppering our children’s ability to fend for themselves as independent members of society. 

While observing the relationship between Australian parents and their children during the course of my stay in the country, it became abundantly clear that most Australian parents had better control over their protective tendencies than their Asian counterparts in terms of letting their children venture out of the comfort zone. They were more open to letting their children try new avenues of expression and exploration – they were a lot more accepting of failure. As parents, we naturally want to shield our children from failure and the disappointment that inevitably follows, but in our rush to shield, we are often guilty of forgetting that failure is the best teacher. 

I recently read about the importance of letting your child learn through trial and error. This idea is still quite alien to many parents in Nepal. There was one gentleman who talked about letting his son go for football tryouts at the local club despite the fact that the boy was not in the best shape physically, nor did he display particularly exceptional skills at the game. He was not selected for the team, and was upset for a few days as a result. However, the gentleman pointed out that once the initial disappointment passed, his son had a productive discussion with him. By himself, his son decided that football was not really for him. 

After reading the post, I thought about all the Nepali parents I knew that would be willing to stand by and let their child take a similar risk: I could not think of many. For a Nepali child in a similar situation, most would probably be discouraged by their parents for fear of failure or something else. Sure, as parents we may often feel that we know the best for our child, but it is important to take a step back sometimes and let them find out for themselves what is and is not right for them. Let them dip their toes in the water and decide for themselves if it is or isn’t too cold rather than telling them it’s too cold from the get go. 

We should stop trying to lay every stone on children’s path. The truth is they may succeed for as long as we maintain that path for them, but we will never truly know if they enjoy that path and plan to continue building that path unless we let them explore by themselves. After all, as much as we may want to, we cannot hold our child’s hand forever, and we must give them the tools to be independent decision makers from a young age. As parents, we must strive to provide guidance to our children as opposed to explicit directions.

(Published in an English Daily The Rising Nepal on Friday, April 20, 2018 

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