Purposeful Parenting - Part II

  -- By Arulnambi K.

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On Mother's Day of this year, I wrote Purposeful Parenting - Part I on my mother's website. Part II focuses on some principles of parenting that my father strongly advocated and followed. When my brother and I were young children, Appa played a smaller role in our daily lives, leaving it largely to our mother to nurture us. He felt that a mother's role at that stage of our lives was more critical than a father's, and would form the basis of the sense of security that is important for young children as they start facing the world. He believed that a father should start playing a much bigger role in shaping his children as they step into their teens - treating them more like adults, guiding them to think more independently, and communicating his own experiences to them effectively so they may learn from them. 

Much of what I learned about parenting from my father was directly communicated to me by him, but I also remember many things that he said and did when my brother and I were in our teenage years and in our young adulthood. His career as a practicing psychologist, and not just an academic one, helped him immensely to identify and distill these principles. He would often share anecdotes from his experiences in psychological counseling of people from varied backgrounds as examples of these tenets of purposeful parenting.

​Build self-esteem and self-confidence
More than anything else, Appa insisted on building children's self-esteem and self-confidence. No age was too young to start doing that. He followed a few simple rules. One of them was to always encourage a child to do something independently. He was against pampering of any kind. He understood that the only way to build children's self-confidence was by allowing them to be independent in age-appropriate tasks. He was willing to help and guide when asked, but he started encouraging his sons to take on responsibilities from their teenage years. In the Indian family culture, parents often take to supporting their children well into their adulthood in many things big and small. "Let him do it, he will learn and get self-confidence" was his moderating refrain whenever my mother attempted to take her love for us to greater lengths than necessary or appropriate.

Another crucial way that Appa followed to build his sons' self-esteem was to appreciate them appropriately and specifically, and many times in a very public manner. It was not just a "good job" said in a casual and throwaway manner. The appreciation was usually very specific about what he liked about something we did. After we came to the U.S., he would write to us and convey his praise in the same specific manner. When you know that someone's praise is true and frank and not mere platitudes, it makes you feel great and does wonders for your self-esteem.

Be a role model
Everything a parent says will not matter one bit if a child not does consider the parent to be a role model. Children are keen observers and nothing escapes their attention. They are much more likely to listen to the advice of their parents if they respect them, and that respect can only come from the parents being good role models to their own children. Parents can claim that their love for their children is unconditional, but the children's love is not. Children need their parents' love, but also need to be able to respect their parents in order for them to be able to truly reciprocate that love.

​Apart from the explicit lessons in parenting, needing to be a role model to one's children was something I learned from both my parents' lives. They lived their lives in such ways that we hope to emulate for future generations. I respected Appa immensely. This respect was shaped by a lifetime of considering him as my role model. His thoughts, words and deeds were crucial in shaping my sense of self and morality, just like Appa's were shaped by his parents - his role models. And so it goes, as parents attempt to shape the well-being of future generations by setting the right example, for that is the most important parenting principle of all.

[ Read Purposeful Parenting - Part I on Dr. K. Kanthimathi's website. ]