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A Parent’s Greatest Investment

(This was an email to a friend when I was bouncing ideas back with forth with her. Pardon the somewhat messy writing style.)

As for our topic, I believe that a person’s greatest investment isn’t a stock, share, company, or house. I believe that a person’s greatest investment is his children. And I hope more parents understand that fact.

God-fearing, loving. It portrays the idea, but perhaps not the actions required?

Like I’ve shared before, I’m more of an action kind of guy. The spirit of the idea, I’ll understand, but I also want the steps to take.

So some of the things I would want to do as a parent:

• Drop everything I’m doing to listen to my child when he/she says “I want to talk.”
• Even though it might be a minor matter (compared to the horrors of the adult world), I must listen and understand the confusion my child is going through.
• Not judge their responses by my standards, but rather their own.
• Smile brightly every time my child walks into a room.
• Never get emotional while scolding my child.
• Never get emotional while caning my child.
• Be honest with my children about everything that they can understand.
• Teach them about Christ, and the intricacies of religion.

I do believe that sometimes parents cannot change their strategies mid-stride. For example, when you’re 5, your survival depends on your ability to follow your parents’ instructions. However, when you’re 15, there’s no life-threatening situation that you cannot physically handle, hence the ability to rebel against your parents!

But in the mind of the parents, they used to have someone that they would be able to control, until the child becomes a teenager. Then they still try the “stick” method against their children when the “carrot” method might be more effective.

Perspective. Always a funny thing.

Just for fun, I wanted to write a book for teenagers, for them to understand their parents. LOL! Enough had been written to parents for them to handle their kids. But not enough for the kids to understand the parents. I’ve got the skeleton laid out in a mind map, but not enough flesh to make a book!

I firmly believe that some children grow up in poverty, and then swearing that their own kids will not live the same lives they did, they push aside their children to build a career, so that the children would never be in want. However, that backfires, and the children just grow up spoilt and attention-seeking.

Someone should change the world’s perception of parents. Parents should not be “the sperm donor” or “the egg donor”. They should be “the character shapers”.

Actually, none of us can speak objectively about the subject. We’re all biased due to our own perception of parents. But if you could, what else would you want your kids to be?

Parenting beyond the cute years

A year ago, I was in Yoshinoya with a couple of friends, when we saw and heard a mother yelling at her son for not understanding how to solve a math problem. The boy appeared to be about 9-10 yrs old? Definitely Primary school. That poor boy just sat there and couldn’t run away. I could tell he was just damn embarrassed.

The mom however, was genuinely frustrated. And you could hear it in her tone of voice to her kid.

At that point, I had this conversation with my friends about parenting. You know the recent parenting seminar, whereby their radio commercials bring up parents who must score high so that they can be qualified parents? I had this thought experiment with these guys, and we talked about it openly.

(I’m not sure if the mother heard me, but I honestly didn’t care.)

Let’s assume that people who want to become parents have to go through an exam before acquiring a license to raise children. What would be required? What would need to be taught within the syllabus? But most of all how would this affect the world around us?

Certainly, because of the vast variation of children that are produced, there are just too many strategies to raise children. However, certain core skills still are required. Soft skills, so to speak. Patience, Understanding, Offering a listening ear, putting aside your work to listen to your child’s day, etc. These are soft skills that if implemented, would produce lovely, well-adjusted children with wonderful self-esteem. Also, schoolteachers are taught that certain children are averse to certain learning methods. Some children prefer working with their hands, others learn visually, and others learn aurally. But parents don’t all know this. Some keep forcing their children to perform academically the same way they’ve learned to learn, by writing and copying and writing and copying. Isn’t that terrible?

Imagine a world with no rude people. Whereby everyone is gracious and well-loved. No more drug abusers. No more gangs. No more people who sleep around just to feel connected to another human being. Everyone respects each other’s properties, boundaries, opinions. Children would respect their parents’ wishes; Parents would respect their children’s free spirit, etc.

This wouldn’t be accomplished in our generation. It would take at least 3 generations of constant implementation before the old system of raising children is completely eradicated. But it is a lovely dream. One that can be achieved.