Page 32 - Spirit of Islam-May'17

GOOD PARENTING
Equip Your Children for Life

ARENTING or child rearing is the process of promoting and
supporting the physical, emotional, social, financial, and
Pintellectual development of a child from infancy to adulthood.
We all are familiar with the following maxim: To be born with a silver
spoon, in reference to a child born in an affluent family. Favoured
children are frequently less successful in their lives than those who
have failed to find favour from their family. Favour is only another name
for pampering. There is a better alternative for parents rather than
giving favour; it is to give their child self-confidence. A non-favoured
child is also a favoured child, but in a different sense; he has the self-
confidence and incentive to work hard. If you love your child and in all
situations you are ready to provide him with help, that means you are
making your child happy but with a side-effect; it will lessen the spirit
of confidence in the child. Self-confidence is the best gift parents can
give their children.
Parents cannot be with the children all through their life like shadows.
Children as they grow have to face life with all the challenges it poses.
Good parenting is to train your children to develop self-confidence to
the extent that they may stand up to the challenges of life, especially
in the later period of their lives. That kind of parenting is good which
proves to be effective in their future and that kind of parenting is bad
which has untoward results. It is not inside the home that parenting
may be judged good or bad. It is outside the home that parenting must
be judged. That parenting which proves effective outside the home is
good parenting.
Parenting is a complex task. Parents have great love for their children.
That is but natural, but as far as their children’s future is concerned, love
alone is not enough. Love often turns into pampering their children.
And over-providing is not good parenting. That can make a child too
easy-going. He may shirk hard work and this tendency could stop his
future development.
Good parenting calls for living between two opposites: on the one side
being soft and on the other side being strict. Parents have to be both
subjective and objective in their behaviour towards their offspring.
Parents are almost always emotional towards their children. But
according to the law of nature, emotional behaviour may not prove

30 Spirit of Islam Issue 53 May 2017