Years ago, I had the opportunity to become one of the speakers to share my experience as a parent in a webinar held by the Directorate of Elementary Schools, Ministry of Education and Culture of Indonesia. The webinar itself talks about how we can protect our children in order to make our country greater. As we already know, to make a country great, one of the key aspects is having great human resources. And how to have great human resources? It starts from the tiniest group in society, which is the family. If one family can teach their children very well, in the future, they will become the best quality of human resources to build our country, and make it greater.
Since I speak from the POV of parents, I just share about the parenting style that I’ve been doing all this time, together with my husband, as the pillar of our family. On that occasion, I told the audience, parenting has to start with us. The parents themselves, as agents of change, must improve their quality and capacity. Somehow, even though we think we are already old enough, but still, we must still have goals in our lives. What are the goals that we want to pursue in 10, 20, or maybe 30 years later? We can’t say because we’re already 40 years old (or older) and then just let it flow, business as usual. It means that there’s something wrong in our mindset, I won’t say it poor mindset, but maybe we have to force our mind a little bit to rethink, is there something that we want to pursue as a parent, or even more, as an individual? I’m pretty sure deep down inside our hearts there’s something that is waiting for us to show it to the world (it’s so natural). It doesn’t have to be big, as we want to have an unlimited amount of money, but maybe you want to be able to do something that you like, but it’s forgotten because of our daily chores as parents, like painting, maybe? Or writing? Or learning new things, like learning another language? It can be anything and everything. Remember, the night is still young.
And to achieve our goals, of course, we have to do something. And there are so many ways. But as for me, the simplest way is to read books. Because after that, we can pass on the knowledge that we have already read from books. So, they will have the same knowledge and understanding about what is good and bad for their self-development, so they can head in the right direction to their goals of life. But, we also have to remember, it is not enough if we only share the knowledge and we do nothing with it. We are the one who has to implement it first. We can’t demand that our kids do something good, but then we are not doing it. It’s such a waste. Yes, of course, we know the children are the masters of mirroring. They will mirror our habits, the way we speak, the way we socialise with others, the way we solve problems, etc. So, give them something great to mirror. Before we ask our kids to do something good for their lives, we have to do it first. We can’t ask our kids to not smoke, but we are smoking. We can create tons of reasons why, as an adult, we can smoke, but still, the kids will always only take the easiest assumption to support their needs; they will not want to know a reason why. In their mind, they will say, My parents also smoke, so why can’t I? Maybe it is the same when we have a flight, the flight attendant told us, if suddenly the air pressure in the cabin increases and the mask oxygen falls out of its place, as an adult we must wear it first, and after that we can wear it to our kids. It always starts with us.
And one thing is for sure, if we still have a spouse, we have to do the parenting together. As for my husband and me, he is the one who is laying the parenting foundations in our home. He is the conceptor, I’m the executor. Somehow, I guess it’s like in school, he is the principal, and I’m the teacher. It happens so many times after he found something important in a book, he told me, so we have something in common to share with our kids. We must have one voice to educate and nurture our kids. A wise man says: It takes two to tango!
But, I know you still have a doubt in your minds, hey…it’s not as easy as it seems. Yes, true. That’s why we have to create a conducive environment to make it happen. How? We must be PRESENT in our children’s lives. Wait a minute, you mean 24 hours of their lives? Chill… no, it’s not. It doesn’t mean that we are physically with our children all the time, 24 hours, but we have to be “aware of the needs of our children in every phase of their life. Their needs include body and soul. For the body, I guess all the parents already understand that we have to provide them with healthy food, a clean house, and clean clothes. And for their soul, they need to feel loved, safe, and feel their parents and their siblings will always be there if they need them, so they will feel calm and comforted. So, any character we want to develop in our child will be easily formed because they already feel CONNECTED.
I’ll wrap this post with this one :
“The solution to every parenting problem starts with 9 words : ‘I’m here.’ ‘I hear you.’ and ‘How can I help you?’
Love,
Kirana Sidin
*By the way, “two girls” in a featured photo is me and my second child, she is 16 years old”
One thought on “Dear Parents, It Starts with Us”