In quest of the best

Today’s blog is very personal and yet a part of the life that most of us are living. Parenting is new to me, strangely as I start writing this blog I feel the need to call it mentoring, as I am yet to experience important parts of parenting that include child birth and nurturing the new born. Even though I am yet to experience many “firsts”, with every passing day, I realize that my first goal is clear in my head, I must prepare this child for future challenges by giving him the best possible exposure to life. As I say so let me clarify that the best exposure to life is not guaranteed by best worldly things. I would like to confess that I am certain had I been writing this blog being a mother my words would have been different and maybe that’s why this is the time for me to set certain ground rules for myself.

We all try to give the best materialistic things to our kids without realizing that these bests are yet comparable to other things around and this best soon becomes normal for the child when he sees them. There is a need to define “the want” and “the need” and the importance of each. There is a need to define comfort and explain how many a times today’s discomfort is most required for comfortable future. Not because today’s discomfort guarantees comfortable future, but for a simple reason that it makes you stronger to face bigger challenges. Problem solving is an exercise which is best learnt with self-experience, remember to be around the child, guide the child and encourage, but the sooner your child starts finding solutions more confident the child gets. Let your child live failures and embarrassments, the child needs to understand that these two are an important part of life and in its learning and they would witness this quite a few times in life. Let your child experience all emotions of life, let them express. Let them feel the pain and learn to handle it for you can’t really make it a pain free life for them.

Be kind enough to guide them through the challenges but never take all their hurdles away, by doing so you are taking away their chances to learn. Why do you want to take away their chance of creating their own stories and memories? Trust me they would love to laugh at itt when they grow up and look back, in the same way as you do now.

Never ever try to compensate time with materialistic things, these two things have different value and impact. One thing that you should certainly teach a child is to value time.

There are endless thoughts that cross my mind with a single aim, what is the best and what does it feel like? Or do we even need the best?

I take your leave with a simple thought, isn’t it enough to prepare a child to live life the way it comes?

Manisha Dawar