Empowering parents are considered the best kind of parents whose aim is to empower and educate the child about life right from home.
Key Facts
- Empowering parents are parents who want to empower their kids about the realities of this world with the help of their own life experiences.
- Such parents are more realistic and mature as they don’t go after superficial academic success but are considerate towards achieving civic excellence for their children.
- Society needs the type of parents whose focus is not only upon the good grades achieved by the child but also wants to improve the overall living condition by character building so that the child grows up to be a person with integrity and high self-esteem.
Parenting is not just a duty but it’s a way of life. Someone has rightly said that you don’t choose to be parents but you definitely can choose whether you have to become good parents or not. Once an individual gets elevated to the rank of parenthood, things change for him/her right from there. The individual’s life has to consider not only about him/herself now but there are children who are looking forward to him/her in all matters of their lives.
Also Read: “7 Crushing Impacts Of An Emotionally Absent Mother On The Children”
Many individuals tend to become the best examples for their children and adopt various strategies and ways so that they can become role models as well as educators to whom the children can trust.
Though people do not consider it significant yet it is very important for parents to gain the trust of their children. It is not a difficult task if you become a bit careful. You can always win your child’s trust with the help of a friendly relationship and your interest in their lives. However, the biggest challenge for most parents is to educate their children about the realities of life.
Who are educating parents?
The first step to empowerment is education. There is a difference between formal education and education about life. Many parents think that if they are formally educating their children about sciences, languages, or arts, their role of being excellent parents is fulfilled and they have achieved their end goal. This is extremely false. The truth is otherwise.
The real excellence doesn’t lie in educating your children about the scientific inventions and the history of the world but the real education is creating awareness within them about life and introducing them with some bitter facts from a young age so that when they reach the age of trials, they don’t feel suffocated by the responsibilities and duties on their part. Very few parents are aware of educating their children about life by using the experiences of their own lives.
These parents are the educating parents who keep on educating their children about society, its moral codes, easy and difficult decisions, and most importantly the difference between right and wrong.
Who is empowering parents?
Well, now that you have already found the duties and attributes of educated parents and how they tend to teach their children about life, things should become easier for you to interpret. The only difference between an educating parent and an empowering parent lies in the method. Confused? Well, you don’t need to be confused at all because we are going to tell you the basic difference.
Parents who are educating their children about life do it as educators. For them, conveying social messages to children is most important. However, empowering parents are different as they not only educate their children but also expect the implementation of what they teach.
They are the ones who believe in the practical implementation of norms and values which are needed for survival. The best analogy is that empowering parents not only gives children wings to fly but also expects them to fly in the guided presence which makes them brilliant planners.
Characteristics of Empowering Parents
By now, it is clear that empowering parents are the ones aiming high for their kids. Yet, there are some distinguishing features in their nature that make empowering parents special compared to other parents.
- They are encouraging.
- They are practical.
- They are honest.
- They are active listeners.
- They are welcoming.
- They work for character building.
- They set goals with children’s help.
- They keep a check on the child’s activities.
- They enable the children to find their potential.
- They guide through constructive criticism.
Encouraging
Parents who are encouraging have a separate fanbase in children of all ages. This shows how positivity works for young minds who are interpreting the world. It is always said that parents who are discouraging ultimately force the child to lose all of his/her sparks.
On the contrary, encouraging parents are always the ones whose support to their children is unbiased. They are the ones who have seen the trials of the real world clearly, therefore they understand the usefulness of individual effort in tackling the complexities of the world. Hence, you won’t find them meddling with the affairs of the children except when the guidance becomes necessary.
Practical
Most parents have a strange habit that they don’t value practical growth but always run behind the superficial growth of their child. Let me clear this for you. If you ask most parents about what they prefer among their children, most of the parents will answer that they want their children to be academically exceptional. Though one cannot deny that this kind of excellence in today’s world is a criterion to sustain life and without this, it is difficult to survive.
However, it is not the only thing or the most primary thing which should be wanted in children, rather real excellence is becoming civilized and useful for society. Unfortunately, the focus on this kind of growth is very little. Parents whose aim is to empower their children understand this well and therefore they are the ones who focus on awareness of the civic sense first and the formal education later.
Honest
Honesty is indeed the best policy. This is why parents who are tending to empower their kids to remember to make their children honest. They know that with honesty, things can get much easier and lies can make life difficult. Therefore, elimination of this basic evil is their foremost duty, and most of the time we find them fulfilling this duty with all their might because they themselves have lived life on the very same principles of honesty and truthfulness.
Active Listeners
Children always have a number of things to discuss if only parents are willing to make time for them and listen to them out of their business routines. Parents who understand the importance of spending time with children and educating them while aiding them in making the decisions of life are always ready to listen to their children.
This is why they believe that listening to your kids can help you teach a number of things. It’s not always true that adults teach children. Sometimes, children are also the ones teaching their parents about life. This is the beauty of conversations and parents who believe in this beauty are not the ones who back off from listening to whatever their children have to offer.
Welcoming
Young children’s minds are hyperactive. This is why their minds are different from ours. Those minds are a hub of invention and curiosity. There are always a thousand little questions building up in their minds about everything existing in the world. That is why experts always recommend encouraging questions posed by young children because it helps to sharpen their minds and also offers them some real facts about life and the world in which they exist.
Empowering parents are the ones who understand the essence of questioning and this is the reason they are always welcoming when it comes to questions. They have answers for everything because they know the art of teaching their kids a thing or two about life by making answers which are interesting and fun.
Working for character building
Today parents are working on parenting from the perspective of parents who can become closer to their children for so many reasons. Most parents want to do so because they don’t want their children getting into something that is not suitable and that’s where the whole point of character building comes from. Character building is a difficult task and many parents are able to provide their children with all the luxuries of life but they still fail when it comes to providing their children with characters that are strong and free of the stains of evil.
As the children grow, things become different in their lives. Their personalities change and this is why it is important for parents to work on their children’s character building from a very young age.
Those parents who tend to empower their children about life take this very seriously, hence they are very careful when it comes to educating their children about right and wrong. They are always addressing their children about what the wrong may cost them in later parts of their lives to an extent that right becomes a constant part of children’s lives and stays with them till the end.
Setting goals by children’s help
The future is unpredictable yet all parents want to do something which ensures that their children are going to be happy and self-sufficient in their future lives. Perhaps, this is the biggest worry of all parents. Perhaps, this is the reason why all of the parents including mine and yours always acted strictly when it came to academic excellence.
However, one thing which today’s parents should realize is that you can never force a child to be something he/she doesn’t want to because it will ultimately crumble up the structure of his/her entire personality. This is why it is very important to ask for the opinion of children when it comes to making important decisions in their lives. All the goals which are set forth by the parents must be in accordance with the choices of the children, only then one can expect to get success in the mission of ensuring a child’s success in the latter part of his/her life.
Keeping a check
It is said that excellent parents are the ones who are always aware of their children’s whereabouts. Though the statement seems ironic yet a bitter truth is hidden in it which indicates the busy routine and the negligence of parents when it comes to monitoring their children’s activities. It is this negligence that creates a sense of alienation among the children and they become victims of evils.
Parents who are educating and aim to make their children aware of the technicalities of life are always the ones who are fully aware of what their child is up to. This helps to observe the emotional growth of their child and wherever is needed they intervene and stop the child from straying and turning in the wrong direction.
Helping children to find the potential
Young children have so much within them that an adult mind cannot imagine. Sadly, most parents never realize the true potential of their children and let them follow the mediocre path as everyone else because in their opinion this is the standard way of life a child is supposed to live.
However, parents who empower their children about life are different. They are the ones who know the hidden gems within their children and with their help, they explore all of them to make the child aware of his/her true potential and capabilities. When children find out about their true capabilities through rigorous efforts, they are able to cherish and value them which they keep on polishing with time.
Constructive criticism
Most parents have the habit of criticizing their children all the time. You all will agree with me that our parents did this all the time and even we keep on doing this, but do you know how toxic this behavior is? Well, if you don’t, let me clear it out for you. Consider a plant whose life is dependent upon sunlight and cannot survive without it. Yes, its life is highly dependent on it but if the plant directly faces the sun all the time on a continuous basis without getting water or any other nutrients, it will simply die.
This is how criticism works for a child. As important as constructive criticism is for a child and the amendment of his/her, continuous destructive criticism can make him lose all his/her self-confidence. This is why it is always suggested to modify a child’s attitude with the help of constructive criticism and in a gentle manner so that things don’t get to a bad end.
Conclusion
Parenting is indeed a great duty which is needed to be fulfilled with all honesty. If parents are becoming disrespectful and abusive, it means they are simply trying too much to show their efficiency as good parents but are miserably failing at it. Empowering parents whose aim is not only to look forward to the academic excellence of their children but to serve for the overall betterment of their children’s lives are really the need of the time.
