The child and freedom…
“You have given your child too much freedom. It’s not good…It’ll go to his/her head.”
Do you agree or disagree with the above statement? The child can be any age/stage of life. At times, one hears this about a thirty-year-old ‘child’ of ours. Often in the society, I have seen people try to drive the life of their older children. And I see those children, for whatever reason, not stand up to the parents but find the easier way of lying and deceiving.
Some of you may agree with me that we need to give our child the freedom. Can we give our children limitless freedom? No. We give the child freedom to do what he needs, not freedom from everything. This thin line marks whether giving the child freedom is empowering the child or…
Let us look at some aspect of freedom as far as giving it to our children, or in some cases, taking the freedom to do things for ourselves, from our parents(depending on the age of the person reading this blog).
- Is anyone in this world totally free? No. The richest, the strongest, most powerful have certain restrictions. They too are not free to EVERYTHING they want to. Even the person toting the gun is not(In fact we may be freer than he is)
- Freedom comes in steps-gradually, one after the other. Can we climb the sixth step directly? No. I need to start from the first step. Same is true with freedom. We start small and then move on to the next step. The child who comes back from play at promised time is more likely to be allowed to stay out with friends once in a while in the evening.
- We need to SHOW the child how to(or in older children’s case what) If we don’t give the child the expectation and equip him/her to do it, the child will fail and we will then say-I told you he/she can’t do it.
As we give our child the freedom, we can expect the child to take the responsibility. The child is free and he/she understands that whatever they do have a consequence and they are the one responsible for it. Remember, we Humans are thinking beings and also strive for perfection in all that we do. Let us trust our child too to follow that way of life and take charge of their own life one step at a time. Remember, you are equipping and empowering your child for life.
My friend shared what her daughter told her, ‘You know, you are a boring mom. Everyone was complaining about their mother and telling how they hoodwinked their parents. I realised that I have shared everything with you and had nothing to share with them.’ This was a mother who gave total freedom to the child…
By: Sujata R. Kumar –Associate Director, IMTC Gurgaon
