As recounted in the cover story in ParentsWorld last month (September), in the anxiety to do full justice and provide every opportunity for optimal growth and development to their children, a rising number of parents are reporting ‘parental burnout’. In the new millennium when a torrent of advice on ways and means to ensure that children excel academically, star on sports fields and attract thunderous applause for co-curricular activities (dance, drama, elocution/debate) is available at the click of a mouse, and happy smiling families are beaming at them from every communication medium, parents eager to do their best for their increasingly spoilt and demanding children, are experiencing severe stress.
Therefore in our cover feature last month, we cited several parenting and lifestyle experts, psychologists and counsellors who advised parents to chill and take time out from parenting duties and look out for themselves. The gist of the advice we proffered was that parenting should be a joyful experience for couples and not an unending round of duties and obligations for the well-being of their offspring.
Nevertheless while self-care and emotional balance is the pre-condition of parenting, there’s no denying that raising and nurturing children is a serious and long-duration enterprise for couples who decide they want to experience the joys of parenthood. Since parenthood is no longer the inevitable consequence of marriage or togetherness as it used to be in yesteryears, people who choose to have children need to love, care and educate them as best as they can until they attain adulthood and are able to fend for themselves. The days when children had to be seen and not heard and do as they were told without any explanation, are history. Today children’s rights and parental obligations are legislated and codified in most countries and by the United Nations. And even if not, careless and oppressive parenting is certain to invite social opprobrium and often sanctions.
In foreign countries – although not in India as yet – universities and think tanks conduct substantial research on ways and means to raise happy, confident and self-assured children. Drawing on these research studies, in this issue of PW we present a report on various parenting styles. There are a surprisingly large number of parenting options available – lighthouse, natural, active, gentle, cultivated and slow. And others best avoided: egg-shell and bulldozer. Check them out and perhaps mix and match to ensure that raising and nurturing little ones becomes a happy, fulfilling and joyful experience for parents as well as children.
As usual cover story apart, there’s much else in this Diwali issue of ParentsWorld. Check out our Early Childhood essay in which pediatrician Dr. Chiranth R. enumerates the benefits of storytelling in developing language skills of youngest children and the informative Health & Nutrition story providing valuable guidelines on reading and understanding nutrition labels.
