Rejuvenate your relationship with your child and gift your child “A happy childhood”

Have you ever found yourself constantly yelling at your children and correcting them, still you don’t see any change in them whatsoever?

Have you ever found yourself worrying too much about your child’s future?

Are you constantly keep telling to do things in a certain way and they do it in other way?

If answer to any of the above asked questions is ‘Yes’, then this blog will give you many powerful insights about understanding your child’s needs and responding to them appropriately that will help you to strengthen your bond with your child and make your parenting journey easy.

Believe it or not,  Parenting has become the toughest task for parents today.

Every parent is trying to provide the best of education, nutrition, games, extra-curricular activities but still the children don’t seem to understand its value. The children get bored easily, misbehave, lose interest in studies, and get into bad company.

Do you agree with me?

I can almost hear a YES.

So, what according to you is going wrong?

Most parents are clueless of this, so they overprotect their children and pamper them overly in the name of love and care.

 Do you have any idea of the growing or developmental stages of a child and how you as a parent provide them with better childhood by understanding these stages? Most parents have no idea about the developmental stages of child’s life and so whatever they do for the child just doesn’t seem enough.

Let’s dive in and understand the different developmental stages of a child.

There are 3 developmental stages in a child’s life:

1.Dependent stage

2.Inter dependent stage

3.Independent stage

Let’s understand each of these stages one by one.

First stage that is, Dependent Stage is the age group where your child is from 0 to 5 years. That’s means from a newborn baby to 5-year-old children come under dependent stage. The children belonging to this category are totally dependent on the parents for their needs.

The second stage that is the Interdependent Stage starts from 6 years to 12 years. In this stage, the child can do many tasks on its own and in some of the tasks they need parental guidance and care.

The third stage that is the Independent Stage starts from 13 years onwards. In this stage the child wants to do many things on his own, make decisions etc. Basically, he wants freedom to take life decisions independently.

So as the child goes through these developmental stages, his or her needs and behavior changes. Most parents are unaware of these developmental stages and they exhibit the same behavior throughout all the developmental stages.

Even if the child has reached Independent stage, parents behave as if the child is still in dependent stage.

The child doesn’t know about itself when it is small that is the dependent stage.  Parents are the significant people for them. Children look up to parents as their role models. It’s the age of around 3 to 4 years that they start to form an image of themselves internally (in their minds) depending on the environment that you provide them.

They take your words for what they are and believe all you say, because according to child, parents are always right. For most parents, saying appreciative statements to the child is easy when the child is up to 5 to 6 years of age.But let me tell you, the primary issue arises when a child reaches the interdependent phase, which lasts between age 6 to 12 years of age.

As a parent, you still think that the child is in dependent stage, and you try to do most of the tasks for them. You are unaware of the fact that this is the stage where child can learn to do many small tasks (arranging their school bag according to the timetable, keeping their uniform and shoes ready for the next day, keeping their plates in sink after eating…) on their own, but because of over pampering you don’t let them take charge.

Some parents ask the child to do some tasks on their own, but they don’t know the proper way to communicate with the child.

They yell at them, scream at them and then the result is the child does not respond the way they want.

Do you agree with me?

Let me ask you a question.

What if someone wants to get some work or task done from you, and if they yell and scream and explain the task to you, Will you do that task for them?

I think most of you will answer a “NO”.

Even though you may do the task, you start to dislike the person or the task.

So now tell me, how you expect your child to listen and obey you, when you yell and scream at them?

“When the flower doesn’t bloom, we fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower.”

So, look at it in this way, that our children are like flowers. Instead of fixing them, lets fix the environment YOU provide them.

So just keep reading and I will explain you few points on which you need to work upon

• Understanding Pain and Pleasure areas of your child.
• Understanding their love language.

Now let’s understand them one by one

Are you ready?

Then let’s begin.

Understanding Pain and Pleasure areas of your child.

According to Psychology, human mind works on the principle of “Avoid Pain and Gain Pleasure”.

Now just observe yourself and tell me, how many tasks or daily activities you do just because you have to do them or avoid which you think are painful?

Be honest, you dread many tasks like waking up early, doing exercise, reading a book and so on. You as an adult(parent) are avoiding these tasks because you have attached pain to these tasks.

Believe it or not same happens with your children.

When you yell at them to do certain tasks, your behavior (yelling, screaming) is the pain they have attached to that task. In fact, the child refuses to complete the task at all, which gives you the impression that your child isn’t listening to you. You begin to identify your child as a stubborn child. As a result, it becomes your child’s identity and he or she starts to behave stubbornly more often than you can ever think of.

Sounds familiar?

Don’t worry. There’s a solution.

 As a parent, you must notice your child’s behavior to identify which activities he or she is enjoying and which ones they are avoiding.

It may so happen that you may observe that your child finds studying painful, so now you as a parent must attach pleasure or happiness with studies so that the child takes interest in studies.

Likewise, observe your child and whatever activities he is avoiding that means he has associated pain to those activities, make the activities pleasurable for your child.

Every human being has an emotional need of to be loved. If this need is not fulfilled, the person will continue to be unhappy and crave for love.

Understanding your child’s love Language

Similarly, every child has an emotional love tank that needs to be filled daily.

So, are you filling your child’s love tank daily?

Most of you may answer a NO.

In fact, you can fill your child’s love tank, only when you understand your child’s love language.

Now let me explain you the 5 love languages of your child:

• Physical Touch
• Quality Time
• Words of Affirmation
• Gifts
• Acts of service

Lets dive in and understand each of the above love language in detail:

Physical touch

Physical touch is the easiest form of love language that parents can use to fill child’s love tank. Physical touch is not confined to hugs and kisses, but even when kids are busy studying or playing parents can just gently touch them on their back, arm or shoulder.

Our children need plenty of touches during their first few years of development (Dependent and Interdependent stages).

The more the parents keep the emotional love tank full, the better the child’s self-esteem will be.

Words of Affirmations

Words play a very powerful role when you want to communicate LOVE.  Words of affection, words of praise and encouragement, words of positive guidance.

These words communicate “I CARE ABOUT YOU” to your child.

Such words nurture the child’s inner sense of worth and security.

Even though such words are quickly said, they are not soon forgotten. The child will cherish the benefits of affirming words for a lifetime.

On the contrary, sharp, and degrading words, spoken out of short-lived frustration, can hurt a child’s self-esteem and instills doubts about its own capabilities.

Quality Time

Spending quality time with children means giving your undivided attention.

These days as both parents are working, they fail to give quality time to the children. When your child craves for your quality time, he will go to any extent to grab your attention.

Even negative attention seems better than no attention to child.

So, you must have noticed, sometimes your child does all the irrelevant activities just to grab your attention.

The most beautiful parent’s gift to a child is the QUALITY TIME.

It conveys the message “You are important. I like being with you.

The most important factor about quality time is not the event itself, but that you are doing something together, being together.

The child feels that he is the most important person in the world to a parent.

 Gifts

The act of giving has little to do with size and cost of the GIFT.

It has everything to do with love. All children love receiving gifts, but there is a difference between gift and a bribe. If you keep giving gifts to your child, only when it does what you want then, it becomes a bribe.

A true gift is not payment for services rendered; rather it is an expression of love for an individual and is freely given by the donor.

Acts of service

Parenting is an act of service towards your children. You should do for your children what they cannot do for themselves that is during dependent stage. But when they are in interdependent stage, teach them how to serve themselves and then others.

 Feeding a meal to a 3-year-olds is an act of service, but an 8-year-olds are capable of doing it themselves.

The main purpose of Acts of service to children is to help them evolve as mature adults who are able to give love to others through acts of service.

Be an observer, understand which is the primary love language of your child and start to fill their love tanks.

Most parents keep on telling their children what all they (as parents) are doing for them. Instead, communicate with your children what they can do with the capabilities they possess. I know, it requires lot of time and efforts from you as a parent, but the results will be far more satisfying.

Your children will develop high self-image and high self-confidence and they will emerge as mature adults.

By now you all must have realized that

“Parenthood is not a competition to see who has the smartest kids, the cleanest house, the healthiest dinners, the cleanest clothes. Parenthood is your journey with your children”

Make this journey a memorable one and gift your children a happy childhood.

 Wish you all a wonderful parenting journey.