Parenting

I have never been a parent. But having been a teacher for more than three decades, I have had ample opportunities to interact with young students and their parents. One of the things I can say confidently is that by observing a student, I can make certain predictions about his or her parents which turn out to be pretty accurate when I personally meet the parents.

Children are what they are largely because their parents have made them that. The personality of every child is moulded in the first few years of its life and parents do that shaping. Teachers, the society and other entities add quite much to that personality, no doubt. But what these latter entities do is only to add certain dimensions to the edifice already constructed by the parents. In other words, parents play a very important role in the formation of a child’s personality.

I’m fully convinced now, having observed hundreds if not thousands of young students and their parents, that the first thing every child should get is an abundance of parental love. What gives the most fundamental feeling of security to a child is the affection it receives from its parents. Without that feeling of security, the child grows up with what psychologist Erik Erikson calls ‘fundamental mistrust’. I have observed that youngsters who exude self-confidence and cheerful spontaneity enjoy beautiful relationships with their parents. The parents are their best friends, so to say. 

If parents can be the best friends of their children, nothing more need be said. Everything else will fall in place quite naturally once such a relationship exists between parents and children.

I know this is not very easy. But I have seen parents and children who enjoy that sort of relationships which means it is possible. I have also observed that such children grow up into mature adulthood without much difficulty. They develop a healthy sense of autonomy, take initiatives without hesitation, work hard where that is required, have a clear self-image and worldview, and establish good relationships with others.

What we become depends on what our parents teach us at odd moments, as one of the characters of Umberto Eco says. It’s not what they teach us through their words; it is what percolates into the veins of the children through the ether of affection that flows between the parents and the children. Wisdom is not taught; it is experienced. And wisdom is a synonym of love.

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