Parenting: Seeds Of Conflict

#Parenting #Homeschooling #Resistance #SeedsOfConflict #PowerStruggles
Dear parents,
I begin today to share my insights on mommyhood n parenting in general. I am an authority?! No! But yes, I have two Rocking individuals who spend their childhoods with me.
I gave birth to two people. Did they apply for my parentage? NO!

To become a parent was my need stemming from a prescriptive societal need.
*The question I want you to focus on is 'Why did I become a parent?'
Give honest answers to yourself. Not me, not your kid, not anybody else
Two individuals, my son's, happened to join me on the plane of this Earth at a time when Internet had not happened to me. It was there but I was not in it full time, like I am today. I have adapted it beautifully, Yes, but I am aware how it affects Parenting today.
Besides we have well wishers in the form of friends, relatives, aunties, in-laws.
Together they are always telling you how to raise your child. What you are doing, often times is wrong according to them.
Like you mommies, when my child was born, I was in the righteous zone of doing it right. I was overtly obsessed with infections, bacteria, TV time, educational aids and the right kind of education. Fortunately, only for few hours of my life.
Sense prevailed and I learned to focus on my kids. My children are my Biggest School and Resource. We do not have Power Struggles and Seeds of Conflict sown into our lives at all. My children are developmentally at two different stages and we relate at all levels. Their Resistance and No, I take seriously and Popular Advice can go take a big jump.
We live in a time when we wish to 'micro manage' our kids from Day 1. Pause please. The individual given to you is a Natural human with instincts and tendencies and preferences. Are you capable of honouring it?
To know a Child, you must first Know yourself.
Do you know yourself enough to guide another human?
Deep contemplation is required here. You are a product of your parents, culture and lately the popular thought line of social media.
Daily, blogs are written on what to feed your children, how to feed your children, calories are measured and carbs counted!
The power struggle begins when you offer a food and your child turns the mouth away. Resistance.
You become more determined, read more, talk in Whatsapp groups, get loaded advice, come back, try again, win some, lose some. Power struggles begin that young. You tell your child. Not You, but what I want is important. I think this is Healthy, (links prove it! Try sharing links with your little angels which you share so profusely like darts of arrows? Not one iota of healthy interest you will elicit🍼😆)
Have you ever paused and simply observed that since times immemorial we ate what we liked. We eat for nourishment and whatever we eat with Joy becomes that.
Ever try to give up your need to feed Healthy. Just Feed. Child is a natural being born with an urge of hunger. They will eat when hungry. Can we patiently wait and make available different foods to them when that hunger begins and observe what they do like?
More often than not it goes. This is what they must eat. This is how much they should eat. This is how they should eat. No wonder, food times are becoming war zones and stress for new mommies zooms up. You new mommies and daddies take way too much in your plate.
Once my children weaned, they sat with us and ate whatever was there. Junk, natural, semi natural et al. They are healthy eaters today and cook for themselves when I absent myself from the kitchen.
Observe a bit, if you get off your righteous 'I am the zealous mommy/daddy' zone and simply observe what brings twinkle to your child's eyes and where the frown goes up. Heavy clues, not available in any link, Insta story or Parenting Tabloid. Right in front of you, pleading for attention. It is a simple choice. Your high horse or Child's happy buggy. Choose well.
Next comes the stage of Schooling. Here too remember your life is not a laboratory, your child is not a mouse to be experimented with. It is Education. School requires flash cards and worksheets. The Child does not!
I repeat, child does not.
Can you accept it? Here begins another Seed of Conflict. Social media, mommy groups, popular agenda, has you under the influence of 'Do this and you are a good parent!'
So you go, buy stuff, books, educational games and what not. Half the things you complain, your child is not excited about.
How do you deal with it next?
Shame and Guilt. People use it on adults all the time. Clever arguments on one upmanship. We still have not learned the adult way of 'This is what I am, now deal with it.'
Faced with that alternative, I will decide to alter myself, leave the interaction or meet halfway.
We go berserk in the process of embellishing the process called Education. Let us get it straight. It is either Schooling or Education. They both are separate.
Child has natural tendencies and is learning each moment. Right from the first breath. Just what they wish to learn and what you wish they learn and how they learn creates conflict again.
You get them worksheets, they make faces. You bribe, you threaten, you manipulate.
Result: Stress. Temporary Obedience.
Ever thought, the nubile one who subjugates out of fear today may react differently when in power later?
They throw out food, perform poorly on studies, misbehave with guests, play power games whilst dressing; may walk out once Grown up?
Distance from Drama for a while. First find out Who you are.
Next observe your children. They will give you superclues what they want. Act on them. Let them know you read their needs and respect it. As they grow learn the Art of Negotiating or laying boundaries. Not threats. Reasonably discussed boundaries.

Walk a mile from popular agendas guiding your actions and revise your strategies of what needs to stay and what can go. Avoid power struggles and seeds of conflicts with your children.
Follow their lead. They will follow yours too. A happy baby is not one who puts a certain brand's soap, shampoo, powder or eats a cereal of a certain brand or fruit in measured proportion or who wears a certain brand or counts and sings well. A happy baby is one who hugs well, whose eyes twinkle with Joy all the time, who discovers personal delight in the world around, finds his/her own God, religion, meaning in a book he reads, finds his own strategy of adding and multiplying, eats heartily without judgement, hugs mom and dad back and says 'I love you Mom and Dad', voluntarily and looks at the world as a big Theme park ready to explore. With or Without You. I would prefer if it is with me. So I say, my children happened to me. I don't raise them. We rise together.
Sonnal Pardiwala @
#SonnalPardiwala