How is your child REALLY growing?
not interested in the 'adult' conversation, so rummaged the menu card. Soon
the waiter came for order. He asked Molly the last. She said, "I will start
my dinner with a triple sundae with loads of nuts and sauce".
"No", screeched in mummy, "She will have a chicken casserole with mashed
potatoes".
"You can have a juice with that", piped in the father.
The waiter, to the utter shock of the parents, asked Molly, "Which sauce you
want - chocolate or butterscotch"
"Chocolate" was molly's joyful cry. Then she turned to her parents and said,
"Somebody thinks I AM
In the last few months of one-to-one counseling, most of the cases have been
parents with teenager problems. But do you think the problem is in the
teenage years or the problem was building up since the child was much
younger? What kind of problems can you envisage if Molly keeps feeling that
she is not real? How can we, instead of just having great intentions for the
child, also understand the child's needs and respond to them appropriately?
Consider a teenager stealing money for mobile phone, telling lies to hide
school notices, not at all interested in studies or lacking goals,
concentration and values, having an affair, answering back or not talking to
parents or worse talking about suicide, drugs and alcohol......
The question that comes to parents mind is "Are we late? We wish the parents
would have raised the alarm when the child first time hid his complain
letter from parents or when the child was reluctant to go to school in early
age or when the child was throwing tantrums in the social get-together to
get that extra piece of chocolate or when the child was scared of darkness
or child did something wrong under peer pressure or the child was only
talking about gadgets and brands or the kid was spending hours in front of
the TV or you had to push to the child to learn anything new or......the
list is endless.
Most parents either blame the child, or admonish the child or even use their
"power" to control the child. We wish that parents you would have realized that any misbehavior is just a symptom and all that the child needs to be is emotionally and intellectually respected. Just like me and you would like to be!
Once we see through this paradigm we look for different kind of parenting
practice rather than "I know all about my child better" approach.
Somewhere our ego is coming in between to seek someone's advice to make
changes in my parenting style. How can somebody advice me to "what should I
do with my child". Mostly as parents we have our own ideas of parenting
approach and we strongly feel that we're doing the best for the child. No
doubt our intentions are best, that does not necessarily mean that our
actions are effective.
So when the child is not doing well in school - we put the child into
tuitions. When the child is not behaving well - we try to make the child
behave well by trying one threat after another or a series of different
punishments till we run out of options and are plain exasperated.
We wish more parents came to Geniekids saying the problem is with my
approach and hence I open to learn about and understand my child more.
We wish more parents realized that subtle changes in our beliefs and
approaches will make a huge difference for now and future.
Its a common sight that once parents reflect back on their own beliefs and
parenting approaches - they realize that their own parenting is what needs
changes, not the child.
Many a times we as parents are clueless. We compare the situations and
children (with neighbors) - and feel good or bad depending upon how my child
is doing. Sometimes we borrow a friend's strategy - without any real
understanding of the child or the strategy.
While geniekids does not offer any panacea - what we offer is understanding.
Understanding that would lead you to explore multiple ways of, "Is my child
getting best of the manure at home to grow and glow?" Not to find any defect
in your child or your parenting, but perhaps lead you to change the way you
see and do.
So let’s end this "appeal" with few pointers:
* Its imperative that we treat a child as real human beings.
* Its important that we resolve a developmental issue at that stage. To that
effect, let’s seek guidance and learning, through resources like books and
internet, through workshops or through one to one counseling.
* Its invaluable that we (as parents) grow as the children grow.
By Ratnesh & Aditi Mathur
For www.geniekids.com
For www.geniekids.com
If you need one to one guidance on anything related to your child(ren) - we offer the same through:
1) Email or chat or voice services like skype. This costs you Rs800/- - one time fee - and unlimited sessions/ emails related to your problems for a maximum period of six months.
2) If you are in Bangalore,India - guidance in person, at our center. This costs you Rs800/- - one time fee - and unlimited sessions related to your problems for a maximum period of six months
For further details on the same, including payment options - please email to info@geniekids.com with subject as "one-to-one"
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