Raising Self-Sufficient Kids

The author strongly believes that as parents it is our responsibility to make our children self-sufficient so that they are able to face the challenges life throws at them.

Parenting is 100% guess work, for most people. There is no formal training and you just learn along the way, and sometimes you don’t. And this lead us to create a breed of broken adults who are difficult to repair.

See, the thing is that we cannot control our lives beyond a point. All the gyaan in the world – about creating your own destiny, being positive and choosing to be happy – are all good things to write and hear, but the real world is different and most people are unable to cope with it. All of us are wired differently and we all have different responses to different situations.

More than the degrees our children gather, earning a living, and standing on their own feet – it is critical that our children know how to manage their lives. There will be ups and downs galore – professional, romantic, health, financial – anything. Their learning has to have two major angles – one is acceptance of the situation and the other is dealing with the situation.

I have seen rich 50 year olds blabbering like idiots constantly looking for support and validation. I don’t  have an issue if someone is asking for support – in fact that is a sign of maturity. However, at some stage you have to learn to manage it. It’s painful, it’s hard and it’s tiring. At some point,  you have to accept the situation and deal with it.

Children must be taught to look for solutions rather than constantly harp about the problem. They need to first accept that there is a problem, and then they must figure out a way to deal with it. It could be something as simple as forgetting to carry their tiffins to school. What will they do? Can they share some bites with their friends? Are they by chance carrying an energy bar for emergencies? Are they carrying money to buy canteen food? If not, should they borrow the money? Whom should they borrow it from?  If not, what should they buy? Should it be iced tea or a hot soup? Or will they just come home hungry and irritable? They need to find solutions on their own. The decisions will not always be right, but at least they did something about it.They made an effort to manage the situation.

And this pattern continues till adulthood. Life will throw all kind of bouncers at them. No matter how much we love our children, there are some battles they will have to fight on their own. They will have to manage all of it on their own.

And I believe that is the only duty we have as parents.

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