COUNSELLOR COLUMN

An ounce of praise is worth far more than a ton of criticism. Teach your child about all the colours. But let them paint the canvas of their life on their own. Shielding your child from every upsetting situation will make him unfit to handle the reality of life. Victory and defeat are both a part of life. Encouraging your child to win is important. It is equally important to teach him/ her how to accept defeat gracefully. Take your child in your confidence when things go wrong.

Children remain children throughout and Parents remain Parents whatever the age. It has been rightly said ”Parenting is an Art and not a science” as it does not run on a fixed pattern and is not constant, it varies from Parent to Parent and Child to Child. The same parents have to adopt different styles and patterns of Parenting for each individual child.

Parenting is a process of upbringing your child in the most appropriate manner but the process starts long before that, when you start planning what to do and what not to do prior to your child’s birth. It starts at a very early stage and we begin by what we have imbibed from our own parents.

A child can cope well with crisis if you mentally prepare him. Let your child not be afraid of making mistakes. Let him know a mistake is not a mistake as long as he learns from it. Encourage the child to take decisions. Good decision making ability will make him successful. Children should not be expected to behave like adults. They cannot sit quietly or concentrate on one thing for long as adults.

 Don’t tell your children how to do things, instead tell them what to do and let them find their own ingenious methods of doing it. 

Hena Akhtar
Counsellor & Spl. Ed