Parenting #5 – Financial Prudence

There are three types of dependencies – physical, emotional and financial. When a child is born, all the dependencies exist. As the child grows up, physical dependence reduces. Emotional dependence will be there till the age of around 23-25 years of age of the child. After that the child has to be financially independent.

We have seen that children learn from parents; they mimic them. We have to encourage them to save the money received as gift. We could get them a piggy bank and teach them how to use it. By the time they are 10 years old, they will understand about a bank and passbook, deposits and withdrawals. We can teach them the concept of compound interest. We need to teach them how money can grow in a savings bank account. Unfortunately, schools don’t teach about personal finance. So, children have to learn it from parents.

We should not discuss the quantum of investment and wealth. But, we can discuss budget; what to buy and when to buy; is it within the budget? Is the purchase for satisfying a social status need?

Older children can be taught about Mutual Funds and equity markets. We should however, caution them about the perils of trading in equity market.

Children are often impatient and look for immediate rewards. Through saving money, we can make them experience delayed gratification. Let them wait for a while before they are handed over things on demand.

Encourage your child to take loans for their education and also repay them by themselves. This way, they will get into a financial discipline.

They have to be taught what is the value that they are getting out an expenditure. Is the purchase worth the amount spent?

While making the child realise that we should be spending within our earning limits, we cannot emotionally burden the child by telling them that we are undergoing a lot of stress and pain in order to earn.

Financial discipline in a child starts at an early stage. The child picks up nuances by seeing his parents’ spending habits. The way unreasonable demands are dealt with by the parents put s a foundation to the child’s view towards finance.

 

 

Parenting #4 - Self-esteem versus ego

What is ego? It is an external validation that each one of us seek for our capabilities.

What is self-esteem? It is an internal assurance of our capabilities.

Ego, in itself, is not bad per se. It is how we feed it. It is generally considered bad to have an ego., because what we encounter is an inflated ego.

A child has to develop an ego so he knows that he is an entity by himself. So, we as a parent, boost his ego once in a while, without overdoing it.

We have to teach our child to embrace a healthy ego, because that will build our child’s self-esteem. Self-esteem is a must for every individual. It takes its roots at the child stage itself. High self-esteem is important for a child to develop her self-confidence. She believes in her inner capabilities and hence develops confidence to take up activities.

A child with high self-esteem will learn to deal with failures as, since she is confident about her capabilities, she is willing to put in more hard work to overcome her failure.

A child with low self-esteem, on the other hand, sees poorly of herself. She does not try hard, as she starts with the belief that she is not good or capable enough. The resultant failure will reinforce her belief about herself. This forms a vicious circle. A child with low self-esteem will tend to get bullied.

How can we better our child’s self-esteem? We should praise. We should acknowledge the child’s actions and praise her for her actions. We should praise the action and not the individual. We should be specific with our praise. Not, “You are so generous. You always help people.”. But, “Today, you helped your friend with her class notes as she hurt her good hand. That was a nice gesture.”

We should be careful not to overpraise. We can avoid extreme words like, “You are the best singer/sportsman ever.” In case of failure, boost the confidence by saying, “You can do better next time with practice or by learning new skills, now that we know what you need to work on to become better.” We should avoid blaming external factors for the child’s failure such as, “You performed well, but the game did not follow fair rules”; or, “The ground was bad”.

Self-esteem is the foundation for a child’s growth. The difference in understanding ego and an inflated ego helps in nurturing he child in the right direction.

Parenting #3 – Teach through action

An infant imitates expressions of the people she sees around her. That’s how it starts. Then we deliberately teach the child various day to day actions, which the child picks up by copying us. Simultaneously, the child also picks up the not-so-obvious actions and expressions like our tone, the pitch of our voice, our facial expression and does the matching of the tone and the expression.

As the child grows up, he observes and learns from how we interact not only with him but also with others around us.

A lot of values get imbibed in a child only through picking up from the behaviour of those around him. Empathy, sharing, caring, attitude of gratitude, moral values, violence, talking mannerisms; basically everything.

Many a times, we advise our children on various issues. Our favourite mode, right? We have to remember that we have to walk our talk. You cannot have one rule for self and one for our child. We have to be the model we want our child to be.

While operating a library, many parents would ask me how to make a child read. I would always tell them to have a reading time with their child. Read their book for them when they are young and as they are able to read by themselves, sit with them and read a book with them.

The way we treat our spouse and the other way round, is observed carefully by the child. The amount of respect involved in the conversation, the tone and pitch of our voice are all absorbed by the child. These put a foundation for the child to grow up to treat the opposite gender accordingly. The kind of vocabulary and the language picks up is largely what the child experiences at home.

We have to be careful of how we behave in front of our child. The child is like a sponge absorbing things from around him. Let us provide an environment which helps him develop into a good human being.

Parenting #2 – Carrot and Stick

As parents, we want our children to be disciplined, well-mannered and behave appropriately. “Spare the rod and spoil the child” was the popular style of parenting in 1960s and the 70s. It has evolved over the years to become “You do this particular activity and you will be rewarded”. It has gone to the point that even a small activity is rewarded. The carrot could be a clap, a chocolate to a gadget. While it is not wrong to appreciate and reward an achievement, it is important to understand the level of achievement and the kind of appreciation that is awarded, whether that reward is justified. There are times when the rewards actually cause harm to the child. For instance, if the child is told, “You brush your teeth and you get to watch TV.” This is an unnecessary reward here; as brushing of teeth has to be done irrespective of a reward. In general, activities which need to be done have to be done. There are no rewards for those.

Children perceive rewards as something they enjoy. So, when we make an activity a fun thing instead of treating it as a chore, then the child knows that chore to be a fun activity. For instance, if I want my child to keep her books away, then I would join her with a song, “The books go 1, 2, 3, 4 back on the shelves…”. I would deliberately put a book with its spine inside, then laugh at my action, “Oops! Now I don’t know which book this is. Aah! I should put it this way.” Turn the book with its spine outside. In case of a teenager, I would make him feel responsible by making him in charge of a chore.

As adults, we crave for attention or reward or appreciation. But conditioning the child to not anticipate a reward works best. We have to remember that the world mostly operates on incentive system.

Dealing with a child with a stick always is equally bad, as it dampens the spirit of the child. For me, hitting a child is not a done thing, as I see it as one of the many sources form where a child picks up slight nuances of violence.

Sticks are not limited to physical abuse, but also words. “Stupid”’ “idiot”, “good for nothing” just smashes the child’s self-esteem. The child loses her self-confidence.

Both carrots and sticks are needed. But how we want to use these and their intensity is in our hands. Too much of either of them is bad. It is my belief the at most situations can be dealt with love and patience. Of course, a lot of energy will be spent, as the child will try her best to get the thing she wants out of us. But if we show patience, by talking calmly and explaining her scientifically, we will be able to mostly convince her otherwise.

In short, authoritarian tone does not help. There is openness, if we speak softly.

Parenting #1 – Helicopter view

Parenting is a joy even with the challenges it throws our way. Parenting starts from the womb, moves to the infant stage, child stage, pre-teens, teenage, young adults, adults. We continue parenting even after they become parents.

A child does not come with a manual and each child is different. There is no one formula of parenting that works for all. At best, we can have some foundational values which can be customized to suit our child and find what will work under what circumstances.

Our style of parenting depends much upon the sources we refer to. We refer to how our parents dealt with us, we read up articles, we look at other parents or we have somebody telling us what worked for them and we copy them, or we may have some elderly constantly guiding or advising us. Some of us read articles or books on child psychology. All these are valid and useful sources. But we need to pick and choose what works for our child. There is no way to measure that what we did for our child is the best in the world. Or, if it was the right way to do. Periodically, we need to review our parenting style in our actions to verify the effectiveness.

One can’t be too conservative, nor too liberal. We have to strike a balance somewhere in between. I know, it sounds impossible. But believe me, if we consciously work on it, it is possible. Drawing an analogy to a rubber band used to tie up our hair, if we put it too loose, it will slip down. If we put it too tight, it will cause us a headache. When the band is new, we need to put fewer rounds. As we continue to use it, it loosens and we need to increase the number of rounds. Similarly, hugging a child too tightly or keeping too close, will suffocate the child. At the same time, if we let her go too far away, we may lose her.

Enjoy every stage of the child. Show concern, but don’t let the anxiety take away the joy from parenting.

Routine versus habits

I am a person of routine. Each day starts with a set of activities. This set of activities remain constant over a period of time, but have not remained the same forever. Two main reasons can be attributed for a change in the set of activities; it may just be one activity, a few activities or all of them.

(a) some external factor has forced me to make a change

(b) Internally, I might feel that I have to change something so as to improve my condition/behaviour.

If a routine is done for a long period of time, then it tends to become a habit. Habit is essentially an action that is done automatically. The muscles just move to do that activity.

So, it can be inferred that if one wants to inculcate good habits, one has to set a routine and follow it consistently till it becomes a habit.

In certain cases, the habits are so ingrained that "automatic" becomes "mindless". For instance, I have been doing exercises every morning for several years now. There are days when the movements are automatic. The muscles just move automatically from one exercise to the next. At the end of it, I sometimes wonder if I did all the exercises. I was elsewhere mentally and was not mindful of my exercises.

This brings us to mindfulness. Research says one has to be mindful while performing any activity for it to be effective. Mindfulness in an activity helps in making it a routine and converting it into a habit. The advantages of maintaining a habit can be derived by being mindful. 

So, can we create a routine to inculcate good habits in our everyday lives?

Asking Questions

The most serious mistakes are not being made as a result of wrong answers. The truly dangerous thing is asking the wrong question. - Peter Drucker

A prudent question is one-half of wisdom. - Francis Bacon

It is not the answer that enlightens, but the question. - Eugene Ionesco

Asking questions can be irritating or a pleasure to the recipient depending on the type of question being asked or the person asking the question.

A child asking questions is usually seen as "cute". There is a perception of curiosity or learning that the child is demonstrating. But if the same kind of questions are asked by an octogenarian or a septuagenarian they are seen as "irritating", even though the objective is the same that of curiosity or learning. The answers to the same questions asked by a child or an elderly person are answered differently by the recipient. The level of patience varies between the extreme points.

Curiosity based questions can again be segregated as curiosity shown with the intention of learning and curiosity shown merely for gossip sake. The latter type of curiosity can cause harm if it is not detected by the recipient of the questions.

The other type of questions is the type a consultant asks. It is said that a consultant is judged by the kind of questions she asks. Here, one is the information-gathering type of questions and the other is reality-seeking type of questions. The information-gathering type of questions are asked to represent the information in a report. The reality-seeking type of questions are for presenting the correct scenario. The latter type of questions are usually the "uncomfortable" questions as the recipients are usually hesitant to answer the questions. More often than not, it is better if the client answers these uncomfortable questions as early as possible in the business cycle so that they can set things right and take the business in the right direction before it is too late.

Questions can be open-ended or close-ended. As seen in questionnaires for surveys, a good questionnaire will have open-ended questions. This will encourage the respondents to think and present the true picture. The responses will be unbiased as opposed to closed-ended questions, where the respondent is directed to think towards a favourable response.

So, as a recipient, are you demonstrating the right amount of patience while answering the questions? As an information-seeker, are you asking the right questions?