Man : Watching You Baby (Parenting Responsibility)

A.   What is parental responsibility?

While the law does not define in detail what parental responsibility is, the following list sets out the key roles:

 

 
• providing a home for the child
• protecting and maintaining the child
• disciplining the child
• choosing and providing for the child's education
• determining the religion of the child
• agreeing to the child's medical treatment
• naming the child and agreeing to any change of the child's name
• being responsible for the child's property
• appointing a guardian for the child, if necessary
• allowing confidential information about the child to be disclosed

B.    Cost of Parenting

§  Parenting job is a challenging one. It carries

o   physical,

o   psychological and

o   financial cost on the other.

• Rising up children is a costly business, educationally and socially.

§  Raising up children be both rewarding and painful

• Biological Fulfilment

o   Children are the fruit to married life. Requiring fitness for biological reproduction.

o   Physiological and emotional phenomena. An instinct.

• Joy in Sex : A Process not the End

o   Procreation is for human continuity.

o   Pleasure in sex is a bonus and needs to be seen with gratitude rather than abuse.

C.    Prepare before you Embark

§  Physical, emotional and psychological preparedness

• Willingness to become parent is important to embark on the journey to becoming parents. Matured understanding and sense of responsibility are essential in parenting.

• Teen-age pregnancy is a fearsome phenomenon, albeit for economic reasons. Occasional news that 'under-age' (as low as twelve years!) old girls becoming mothers, but they are known to be the result of pre-marital sex, even after heightened advertisement of 'safe sex'. The 'condom culture' is having its toll.

§  Support from those, close in the family circle, is vital for the journey to parenthood.

• Arrival of a new member in the family needs extra preparation and amenities, but one should not wait for a 'perfect' financial or social condition.

• Minimise the financial and other difficulties through hard work and look for blessings.

§  Confident Start and Good Planning

• A unique journey,

• New experienced for the first baby. But natural instinct teaches everyone how to cope and succeed. It needs insight and an open and exploratory mind. People learn from seeing others and make good planning ahead.

D.   A New Challenge

"In this process parents also get more matured and responsible in life." Expand on this by showing what aspects of the parents' character improve. Also show how children can allure human beings toward worldly life.

§  New World

• As the baby gradually becomes a child, his world starts widening - from his parents in the beginning to people around him.

• The surrounding environment keeps on building his personality.

• In the first two years the baby grows steadily and changes rapidly, becoming active and needs protection from a lot of household dangers when he walks, runs, talks and pokes into anything he finds interesting.

§  Communicate

• Learns how to communicate meaningfully with others. Observing, responding and learning from every activity.

• Countless information piling up in the small brain and confusing the child.

• In the process of building his unique personality. This is the time when parents

have tremendous role in his rapid physical growth, intellectual development
and spiritual quest.

• The child's life begins as an adventure and this, naturally, puts a physical high demand on the parents.

• Every day he masters new skills, speaks new words and understands new concepts through games and other activities. All parents remember their child's beginning years with most affection.

§  Safety and Well-being

• A baby is dependent on others, but not ignorant or totally helpless.

• He knows when he is happy, hungry, tired or in pain and he signals these with his sound and body movement.

•  As 'health is wealth', the parents must take their young child's physical well-being, safety, immunisation, etc, very seriously. So should be the moral, spiritual and intellectual upbringing.

        i.       Child's Attachment to Parents

§  Physical Closenes

• Parents, especially mothers, physical closeness is important giving security and peace at tender age.

• Keep an eye on the vulnerable. A child, of course, should not be made unnaturally dependent on parents.

•  A gradual natural 'programme' for independence needs to be adopted. This requires careful planning for positive parenting. The practical task of parenting needs 'professionalism' and basic 'skills'.

      ii.       Children Learn through Play

§  Learning

• Children love playing. The sort of games or play a child likes varies. Games and other activities give him the opportunity to learn about the world around him.

• It is universally acknowledged that physical activity, games, intellectuallystimulating play, etc, enhance children's creativity and confidence.

    iii.       Parents Learn from Children

§  Instinct

• Common sense and elementary knowledge to interact and contribute to their child's development is a process that is needed in order to nurture and developed a child.

• Conscious parents continuously learn from the child. It is a two-way process.

• Parents respond positively to a child, will eventually develop into a sociable and considerate person.

• All children are born with innate potential, parents need only to blossom them.

     iv.       Home as the Nursery

§  Nurturing

• Positive parenting involves pro-active teaching with love and care, but with admonition (punishment) if and when necessary.

• Planning in disseminating knowledge and understanding commensurate with age and ability. Conscientious parents have targets and focus in educating their children from the very beginning.

• Children are not adults and as such should not be left on their own to find their own way. It is true that natural instinct leads human beings to find their way to survival.

• But children need nurturing - physical, intellectual as well as spiritual, in order to grow as 'emissary' of on earth.

• Responsible parents are like cautious potters who meticulously and sensitively engage in shaping their vulnerable raw materials for a wholesome outcome. Every community invests on creating their future generation in their way.

       v.       "Pro-active teaching"

§  Examples are Better than Precepts

•  Children are efficient in identifying love, affection, anger, sadness and other human features. They can read the faces of their parents even when they  are small.

• Parental dealings have to be meaningfully positive, especially intheir tender age. Parents need to overtly display their positive feelings.

• Maintain consistency in their dealings and behaviour.

• However, discipline is also important for proper upbringing and teaching. That does not mean that parents should only resort to 'Do's and Don'ts' to discipline their children.

     vi.       Vocabulary and Ethos

§  Words and language

• As fast as sickness spreads, swearing words and slang languages could be easily learnt by the children. Parents must be careful in using words at home.

• Good and nice vocabulary should be constantly used before the children so that they get the habit of saying them.

• The words, Please, Thank You, Good Morning and other religious vocabulary and like should be in their lips as daily vocabulary

• At the same time parents need to practise religious/moral and general rules of human decency.

   vii.       Personality Traits

§  Character

•  As a child grows, they develop their own unique personality. Some of the traits are inherited or hereditary. Physical features, such as height and color of the skin and mental characteristics, such as aesthetic talents are passed from the parent's genes.

•   Child upbringing, health care, education, abundance or deficiency of love, family manners, etc, influences the growth and development of the  child and moulds his personality.

E.    Education

§  Schooling

•  Starting school is an exciting experience for young children and a challenging for the parents. Children to pre-school nursery before the statutory education have already passed a phase in that challenge.

• Exposing to host of new life experiences needs parents careful planning and preparation.

• School provides the first opportunity for exposure to outside world through formalised education.

• In the task-centred education philosophy, a child is the tool; parents must continuously interact with the child as to what is going on in his world of schooling.

•  Parents should ask, help, guide and build confidence in him. Sharing the child experience of school life.

• The child's learning process needs an open and broad outlook from the parents, a sensitive approach and conscientious attitude.

i.      Social Side of School

§  Skill

• Acquiring social and life skills is the basic in schools. Learning to become responsible and gradually independent in life starts from school. 
• Home-work, school visits, school functions, etc, are the tools of disseminating these skills.

ii.    Potential Hurdles in School

§  School Ills

• Schools could become difficult for some children and the parents should watch out what message the child brings from school.

• Bullying, racism or other hideous offences can create dislike for schools in young mind and they need to be challenged head on.

iii.  Personal Hygiene

§  Cleanliness

• By the end of the primary school-life most children are at near- puberty stage. This is when law of life begins to be determining factors in their life.

•  Both father and mother should be pro-actively engaged the child so that they are not lost or misled in this important juncture of their life.

• Cleanliness and personal hygiene are important for boys and girls.

F.    Family Time

§  Quality Time

• Earning livelihood is an act of worship and struggle, and as such spending quality time for the child is increasingly getting difficult for the parents.

• Leaving mother alone to struggle with the household works and manage education of the children.

• Parents need to manage time to sit together sometimes and discuss family issues of importance, plans for getting together on occasions. Children should be aware of the difficulties faced by their parents.

•  Managing time to play with the children.

G.   Discipline

§  Responsibility

• Discipline is important for success in life, but it is a shared responsibility. On the other hand, freedom is total is not absolute in the human nature.

• Need to create a responsible, discipline family atmosphere where everybody understands their role.

• Discipline implemented by force and excessively is not natural and bound to fail. Excessive discipline has opposite effect. Too much control leads to rebellion or else make children isolationist, docile and passive.

• Parents must avoid head-on confrontation with their child at any situation.

• Communicate

§  Listening Skill

• A child is a not adult. He talks, often repeats unnecessarily and sometimes talks without probably any meaning.

• Patience and active listening is a skill. Man has two ears and one mouth in order that he listens more than he talks and reflects.

• Parents need to talk to their child meaningfully and listen to understands.

• Learning

§  Enjoying and purposeful Learning

• Sensible parents leave room for their child's physical and mental space. Parents can engage him with story-telling and good audio-visual cassettes.

• Story telling has long-term impact on learning. Stories of great people on earth especially are inspiring. Poems, songs and other artistic areas need to be encouraged as long as they do not go against ethical/religious boundary. Children must be encouraged to read, as reading for knowledge and understanding is the way to succeed.

• Health

§  Physical and Mental Fitnes

• Balanced diet, regular exercise and intelligent games are important to be

inculcated among the young ones so that they make them a habit of life.

• Period when young people could be glued to TV, four to five hours, which is detrimental for the physical and mental health of the child. Adverse effect of being a loner, dull and self denial. .

• Morality

§  Religious and Ethical Manners

• Life is about education and education starts from childhood. The need to teach children with sincerity and kindness.

• As manners and behaviour is highly regarded, children need to be educated on how to behave with other human beings and the environment.

• Greeting people and respond to them in various situation,

• seek permission to enter a house or room, etc, are part of culture. A child's manners reflect his personality and future potential.

• Consumerism and immorality, celebrities and trendy fashion rule supremacy now. Thus need to educate the child not fall into the trap of trend, idol or capitalistic ventures.