As a culture, we have extreme measures to build our child’s personality. There are certain ways they have to speak, they have to listen to anyone who is older than them and blindly follow their parents’ dreams. When do these rules become too much?
The practice of not buying your son a cell phone which you can easily afford does not make him learn the value of money, neither does renting him an apartment in London spoil him.
Supporting the kids
It is important to provide our children with emotional as well as financial support as much as we are able. Not providing the support would end up depriving the child instead of teaching a lesson.
Teaching a lesson means if your son bullies at the playground, he should be punished. It doesn’t mean if your teen is jobless, you refuse to help him financially. If you are so fearful about spoiling your child by not allowing him to struggle, then give him money as a loan instead of handing it over.
Controlling their lives
Children need to make their own decisions. Once out of school, they should decide what they study and where they study. Unless, it is an extreme situation where the child picks a terrible university and a hopeless future, there is no need to interfere. In our culture, we believe the only respectful profession is to be a doctor or engineer, the rest are hopeless.
I have met a few “doctors” who don’t practice medicine but are stay-at-home moms; they only studied medicine because their father wanted them to. These ladies could have been a number of things but they missed out on a more active and enjoyable life because they wasted time studying a subject they disliked.
Teaching to respect
Children need to learn to respect elders but what if the senior citizen in question is a terrible person or has an attitude problem? Respect needs to be earned; it is not given because of age. You need to say no to something which is wrong; only because someone older than you has said it doesn’t make it right. I see people around getting married because “mom said so” or “my uncle believes she is a saint.” Within a year or two these couples are divorced. Eventually who suffers? The “child” who is an adult, completely capable of taking care of themself, becomes a victim.
Our culture believes in higher education so intently that even a university degree does not get you a decent job; you need a Master’s degree! What’s the purpose of such education if you have an eighteenth century mentality and can’t even make your own decision when you’re 25?
Additionally, we need to understand that having access to technology makes us smarter.
Children were spoiled even when there were no emails and Skype but only telegraphs. We also need to learn to let the children be and support them in bringing their ideas forward instead of comparing them with the neighbour’s son constantly and telling them about the hardships the parents went through because of the unavailability of online shopping.
Keep in mind that the struggles your kids go through are different from your generation. May be if you were in their shoes you wouldn’t be able to handle it.
