Avoid control battles:  Issues of control abound when parents face having to set limits with kids.  There are no easy answers when trying to get kids to do what is told.  However, choices (up to to or three) can be offered so that kids feel they are practicing their skills and parents still have say-so over the two or three choices for any given task or issue.

Teach by example:  If one asks kids to socialize or exercise and one is a couch potato or if one asks them to clean up when one’s own room is a mess then that will not go very far.  Kids at any age are constantly looking for parents to practice what they preach.

Do not think kids will necessarily follow the career or other interests of parents:  Parents want the best for their children but sometimes it can go too far.  Kids are not the extension of their parents’ wishes; they have to develop their own interests and be encouraged with those gifts and talents.  Yelling at a football game and getting carried away with other parents through arguments does not reflect sportsmanship and maturity that parents need to illustrate to children.  All healthy interests should be encouraged from the arts and sciences to sports, dance and the like.  Many evolutions take place that will ultimately develop a child’s path into adulthood.  What is the rush? 

Search your own soul for judgment and prejudice that can be passed onto children:
Children are born with a clean slate; they play equally with all.  Gradually this can fade as parents and society color their perspective with various attitudes and prejudice.  We have to evolve to a point to instill in children equality consciousness, brotherhood and mutual global respect for all traditions, cultures, races, gender and religion.

Contemplate deeply on the issue of corporal punishment and spanking:  Although children are experts at pushing buttons and playing on the vulnerability of parents, teaching through violent means often leaves scars, emotional damage and difficult recovery in later years.  Many do not agree; however, the net result of damage can reveal itself in unhealed emotional wounds in adults in their teens, twenties and thirties and far beyond.  Children’s systems are sensitive and such violence leaves impressions that are difficult to release in later years.  Self- esteem is everything.  It starts with a higher way of handling discipline and limit setting other than through spanking. 

Use a variety of ways to express love and support.  Words and actions are two wings of a bird to help children feel and be loved.  If parents do not have this ability then their own work in opening their heart is vital.  Without this example and effort from parents, children can develop in a wide variety of ways that may or may not reflect a healthy and balanced sense of self.  Love is the key and foundation to the developing sense of self in children, simple to say yet sometimes easily overlooked as our life becomes ever-increasingly complex.

© 2007 - 2009 Rama Pemmaraju Rao, M.D.

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