Parenting blunders. What you should unlearn now and forever. (3)

There is no end to ‘what-to-do’ and ‘what-not-to-do’ in the parenting journey. Until now, in part 1 and 2, we saw how some of the commonly committed mistakes, that we just ignore in daily life, can become scary parenting blunders in the long run. In this closing chapter, we shall focus on some more of these innocent- looking yet terrible blunders with a hope that knowing them shall prevent us from committing them.

• Comparisons.
• Labelling/Name-calling.
• Belittling.
• {The belief that} Knowing = Doing.
• Equating Punishment to Discipline.
• Gender-based parenting, and teaching.
• Making all decisions on your child’s behalf.
• Being a miser in encouragements and reward.

Parenting blunders #6 Gender-biased parenting and teaching.

Apart from the fundamental differentiation required for successful procreation, God did not make a single other variation in our human bodies. Ignoring the almighty’s wish, why has mankind made such elaborate efforts to cause this gender divide? This is beyond my humble and very humane perception.

There should be no need of being a feminist or a menist (this term will soon surf-up given the popularity of former). We must let our kids live in a world where they don’t need to fight against this self-created discrimination. Let them stay humanists. Either as a consequence of our own upbringing or the beliefs of the society we live in, we end up doing a lot of gender-biased parenting. It takes an enormous effort to break this unseen ‘passed-down-generations’ chain of prejudice.

Sounds familiar!

• Boys don’t belong in the kitchen? What’s a young man doing in the kitchen?
• Help your mom in the kitchen (to your gal), see what dad is doing outside (for the boy).
• Girls take care of the household while boys take care of outside.
• Men dont cry.
• Be a Man.
• Be a lady, dont be so tomboyish.
• You can’t do that? Because you are a girl/boy? this is the most absurd explanation to any question, yet a popular one.

Who are we to decide what a girl or a boy can do based on our crippling prejudices rather than their actual potential and personal choices?

We make our kids handicapped for life by not teaching them basic life skills like cooking, cleaning, taking care of oneself in day to day life, self-defence, and good morals. This should be a foremost (gender-irrespective) responsibility of every parent. Let your kids help you, cook food for you, clean the house (over and above taking care of their room), do the dishes, iron the clothes, mop the floor, do grocery shopping, stand-up and speak for themselves, thereby learning to be self-sufficient as they grow up.

Even our blessings are biased :-(

• Putravati bhav (May God bless you with a Son)
• Sada suhagan Raho (May your husband live a long healthy life)
• Banjhan ko Putra daet, Nirdhan ko Maya. ( Even Gods bless infertile wombs with a son, while the poor are blessed with money irrespective of gender)
• Doodho-nahao, puto-falo (May God bless you with abundance and male child)

Our customs and beliefs teach inequality with pride

• Fasts are kept by females of the household for sons or husbands. there isn’t a single fast dedicated to the female of the house taken by the male members. Though men do keep fast, for Gods!
• Mundan/head shaving ceremony is just for boys.
• Rakshabandhan teaches children that brothers should defend their sisters. Sisters tie the thread of trust on her brother’s wrist. Turns a bond of love into the bondage of responsibility.
• Rituals attached to the birth of a son/ Celebrating manhood are innumerable, and so hurting to the spirit of equality.

You may want to ask where is parenting advice in all this? Sounds more feministic banter!

We, as parents, allow all this to happen and let our kids witness the bias as a normal way of life. The most potent form of parenting is observational. Kids end up like their parents, most of the time imbibing their life principles and beliefs without actively trying for anything. WE ARE TEACHING THEM BIAS and preaching equality.

This a major parenting blunder that we all are committing. We must actively and attentively stop this gender-biased parenting. Just telling them that guys and gals are equal and practising inequality will only teach inequality. No girl is born with cooking skills and no boy learns combat in the womb. STOP BEING SO PASSIVE ABOUT IT.

Do the tabooed talk.

Talk to your boy about menstruation/periods and let him know how girls feel about it, and deal with it. Girls eventually experience it in actuality while boys only know what they are told. So, tell them the facts before they learn the gossip. My boy knows about sanitary pads and periods and I haven’t seen him wondering and asking absurd questions when the ads show up. He knows it and its normal. No embarrassing moments here.

Talk to your boy about puberty, before he hits it. Boys experience so many changes at puberty and as usual, confused with half-baked knowledge, they resort to peers, magazines, media for answers. Everyone knows where this leads to. Shady and puzzled lands. They need to know what is happening and what will happen. It is a piece of must-be-given information.

This is such a dear topic to me that I can talk hours on end without tiring, but seems to go beyond the scope of this blog. We shall brainstorm this separately and in detail sometime later.

Parenting blunders #7 Taking all decisions on your kid’s behalf.

Isn’t it frustrating when someone keeps deciding for you without giving any weightage to your feelings? Till a certain age, it is our responsibility as parents to make appropriately right decisions for our little ones, but not forever. You don’t need to agree to everything and anything they say but it is equally important to listen to their input very respectfully, reasoning their doubts with trustworthy replies.

Help them make the right decision, don’t force your beliefs on them. A well meaning action can be felt as tight noose when delivered inappropriately. It is neither healthy nor necessary to stand for them and talk on their behalf all the time. You don’t want to raise a dumb, lacking confidence, scared to decide adult because you never let him/her in charge of their life.

As they grow up, we must learn to loosen the hold, respecting their decisions with more and more autonomy trusted on the kids.

• Start early. Let him/her choose the dress they want to wear unless it turns to be too inappropriate for the occasion.
• Kids should have the right to decide the menu for the dinner/lunch at times without taunting judgements by the parents. Your child will choose what they learnt from you. If you taught them well, your table should have a well-balanced meal spread. Their choices are reflections of your teachings, and an excellent opportunity for shifting gears wherever necessary.
• Don’t force your choice and let kids choose the subjects they want to study. Reason with them but don’t reason for them.
• Respect their desire or denial in learning a new art, be it football or violin.
• Respect their choices in life, be it the company they keep, their love life, choice of a life partner.

No parent can hold a child captive for long, they leave the nest someday. Whether they are ready to face the world and make good life choices depends upon the good practice we gave them as parents while we had the opportunity.

Deciding everything for them and shielding your kids from responsibilities translates into handcuffing them before pushing them out in this cut-throat competitive world. Respect their choices, and help them make the correct ones.

Children allowed and encouraged to express their feelings, participate in decision making, and make responsible choices are known to mature into confident adults. Yet, failure to do this is one of the most commonly committed parenting blunders.

Parenting blunders #8 Being a miser in encouragement and reward.

We want the whole world to explode with praises for our kids, but when it comes to us, we become so miser. The belief that ‘praise gets to their heads’ is a big-time false belief. When in reality, it the constant reprimands that get to them and hurt their heads badly. When done appropriately and in an encouraging tone, PRAISE is a very potential drive to perform better or build a desired behaviour.

We clap, jump, laugh, and even cry when our little wonder utters that first word or takes that first step. walk hours behind them teaching them to paddle the cycle. We are so full of praise, encouragement and pride in those early days. And, it pays well. Kids do learn faster in a supportive and joyful environment.

Why do we stop? and become so miser in emoting the praise while our reprimands grow by leaps and bounds each day. Unlearn these disastrous parenting beliefs, the nasty parenting blunders, now and forever. The world is full of bullies and leg pullers, kids don’t need their parents to join them.

Stop telling your child how bad his grades are and start appreciating his A+ in sports session. Will everyone turn out to be Einstein, who will be captaining our Team India. That doesn’t mean you don’t need to work on them, but there are plenty of good ways to do this and discouraging is not any of them.

Your child may keep his room a horrible mess, but your constant yelling will not make him do better. Start appreciating days of less mess and small acts of attempting cleanliness. In no time, you will see the room tidy.

Praise the goods s/he has and work on making the not-so-good-ones better like a team. None judges the other and all work for one goal: success.

It’s scientifically proven through years of research on child-behaviour that positive reinforcement and encouragement strategies are far more effective and rewarding than reprimands/punishments/negative conditioning.

The list of to-dos (the parenting wonders) and not-to-dos (the parenting blunders) in a parent’s life is so huge that no single article/ book/ person can do justice to the topic. The best parenting style is ‘HAPPY PARENTING’, where the parents and the children enjoy the journey together. You both should joyfully enjoy the highs while dealing with the lows as a team. Don’t be so stressed about being THE PERFECT PARENT, there is no such title to be earned.

ENJOY THE TRIP, THE DRIVE DOWN THE ROAD IS FAR MORE BEAUTIFUL THAN THE DESTINATION.

D. Poonam Darswal

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