Time indeed runs very fast. Its my son who took up my wife’s job to wake me up every morning. He always hope it’s a weekend and no office or school. Though its difficult to digest that am getting old ; ) I always admire to see the next generation of ours growing in front of you under your shade. Parenting is never an easier task. Every child is unique and probably every nuclear family is also unique. With globalization in place, its always a challenge for young parents to ensure the best practice in place to capitalize the most responsible task in the world ‘Parenting’
The following are purely my observation. I am neither an expert nor an achiever when it comes to parenting. I defined some guidelines to myself based on my limited exposure to the world and adhere my best to guide my son. He is now 3.5 year old and its still a long long way to go. I thought this post may help at least a fraction for readers to define themselves when they enter parenting. The following can be termed as guidelines for 3-4 year old kids but some of the points may suit all ages… may applicable to my own dad n mum too ; )
- Do not strictly go by the rule ‘only get what a kid needs not what he wants’. We need to think rationally and ensure both ‘need’ and ‘want’ are balanced. Every time when he reaches new mile stone (like writing down alphabet or when he adds new word to his vocabulary), I gift him a 50 cent toy or play xbox with him and intentionally lose the game with him ; ) Not sure if it’s a great idea, not sure even if its working in my case… but patience is the key : )
- We Indians generally lag ‘Gratitude’ factor a lot. Enforce as many ‘Thanks’, ‘Sorry’ and ‘Please’ as possible to kids. For some reason, kids don’t really like the words sorry (or is it just my case) but I am very serious about this habit and this defines ones personality for me.
- To me, Identity is the meaning for your life. Irrespective of any one from any race, I strongly suggest one to preserve the identity and pass it rightfully to next generation. I belong to Tamil family which is my identity. I wish my son should adopt, adore and admire the pride and take it forward. The biggest challenge is, being NRI and get the identity factor sorted. I am having a tough battle every second to make my son speak Tamil. Fortunately, Singapore as a country also encourages Tamil being one of the national languages but the globalization era is taking a toll on the identity management : ) No choice but to continue working on it.
- Discipline Discipline Discipline !!! I try my best not to force any thing except for discipline. To me, studies or academics is secondary. The only time I get grumpy on my son is when he doesn’t behave.
- School is another hot topic when any two families meet. I came from a school which doesn’t have any track records that time. I am not a nuclear scientist in USA but I don’t regret my present life either. There are 99 other factors that shapes a kid apart from school. I don’t mean to say school doesn’t matter, my point is school is not the only factor. I myself don’t know if my son is in the best school but am happy that he is growing with basic skills he should be acquiring from ‘A School’. And please, never compare your son’s school with any one else’s ; )
Got lot more to write but I can’t spend quality time any more ‘thinking’ : ( These are the stuffs from top of my head. I will write some time in future with more inputs out of my experience. Parenting for sure is a wonderful experience. Every year, you are entering into a new phase and its exciting. Happy Parenting : )
