Overview:
Modern-day parenting need not be complicated. Here's how to simplify it the old fashioned way.
Parenting is serious business. It is a huge commitment, taking responsibility for molding another human-being and one needs the guidance of experts at various points of a child’s journey to adulthood. Nonetheless, bringing up a normal, healthy child need not be too complicated. Yes, it takes a village to raise a child but are the new breed of parents getting over dependent on mom-influencers or TikTok reels?
Rushing to social media for advice
When did parenting become so complex? Why do we need expert advice from social media on how to feed our children carrots? Make it tasty and if that doesn’t work, hold the dessert! I have seen perfectly competent, intelligent beings go for a sixer when faced with the simple issue of limiting screen time for 11-year-olds. Why not tell the child that x hours of screen are enough? Why should setting limits be this tough?
I became a mother at 22. With no Google search with 200,000 results in .54 seconds, no parenting experience or immediate family around, we trusted our instincts and depended on a community of friends, family elders, physicians, and our own experiences growing up. We made mistakes, but we learnt and grew. So, can we not go back to raising kids trusting our own common sense instincts and good old-fashioned grandma wisdom?
Infancy – Feed, clean and keep cozy
And all babies feed, pee, poo and sleep at first. Barring health complications needing medical attention, if they’re fed, clean, warm and cozy, that is it! You are on to a great start. You can count upon sacrificing sleep, routine, and your sanity, but very soon, you’ll learn to understand all their needs.
A wise doctor’s advice to us early on was if a child is eating and sleeping well, and is active, there is seldom anything to worry about. Activity and appetite are pretty reliable indicators of good health for a normal child. Of course, you must monitor milestones, get all the timely immunizations and check-ups with the pediatricians.
Children and social media
In this day and age, when many of us have taken to chronicling our lives on social-media, pictures or reels of kids guarantee eyeballs. Cute kids reign over Instagram, Facebook and Tik Tok, and parents soaking in their 15 minutes of fame are now thrusting their children into the spotlight too. But what is the impact on the young, impressionable minds? In time, this behavior also draws kids into the dragnet of social media. So, as much as it is tempting, avoid chronicling your children’s lives on social media.
Childhood, a time to set boundaries
Early childhood is the best time to set boundaries for behavior and instill good habits and values. And nothing better than teaching by example. For instance, it would be foolish of us to be on a device for long hours and expect our kids to limit screen time. ‘Act as you would like them to act’ often is the key to all habits and behavior formation.
From the age of one, children know the manipulative power of their cuteness! With determination and lung-power far exceeding ours, they are also learning to assert themselves. This makes it the right time for them to start learning acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Nipping the unacceptable right at the bud is the best. Firm, calm and consistent ways always work.
Encourage screen-free time
Rewarding desirable behavior and discouraging undesirable ones is actually quite simple. When 5-year-old Vihaan started practicing the punches he watched in his favorite animation movies, Pooja and Vaibhav Bhargava decided to step in – screen-time had to go. It didn’t take much, a week of no screen time was rewarded with a small Lego set. That IS really IT! Vihaan is allowed TV once in a while but he now uses his free time reading or playing. Children do test the limits of our patience but it is up to us to draw the lines firmly.
Be firm and consistent
Similarly, things like picking up after themselves, doing homework, not fussing about meals, basic hygiene, setting a good example, and having an incentive-disincentive system work well. If your picky eater rejects the given food, don’t rush to prepare something else, and never buckle down to ordering unhealthy take-outs when faced with a ‘Blech!’ As my own mother coolly said, “Don’t like what’s on the table? Fine”. That’s it. No more food was forthcoming. It always worked!
Firmness, consistency, or disincentives like time-out or taking away TV or play privileges go a long way in curtailing bad behavior as rewards like hugs, bedtime stories, family play-time, or a drive work wonders, as do to encourage good behavior.
Give age-appropriate responsibilities
This is also the time to give children some age-appropriate responsibilities and resist our mothering instincts. Doing small tasks like making their beds or laying the table can have multiple benefits like gaining confidence, building good habits, and earning parental trust which lays the foundation for an easier teenage and prepares children to face bigger responsibilities and challenges in adulthood.
Helicopter parenting
Helicopter parenting or micro-monitoring kids seems to be an issue that starts early and persists through the childhood of many children, sometimes going well into the teens. Excessive attention can have serious ramifications in the future, just as too little attention. While one imagines that children from nuclear families lack attention with both parents working, it often works the other way. To make up for our absence we end up smothering them with attention every moment we are with them. Children waited upon 24 x 7 will likely have trouble being on their own when they grow up. On the other hand, they will be perfectly fine if left alone briefly during their waking hours. Be there enough to make them feel secure, but abstain from creating a needy, molly-coddled kid.
Children and pre-teens both need a balance between structure and freedom. And both need consistency and trust. As Johanne Wolfgang von Goethe said ‘There are only two lasting bequests we can hope to give our children. One of these is roots, and the other is wings.
Structure is the root and freedom, the wings. It is up to us, the parents, to give our children both.
