ONCE A MOTHER ALWAYS A MOTHER………

ONCE A MOTHER ALWAYS A MOTHER………

“A mother is she who can take the place of all others but whose place no one else can take………”

God has gifted we women the power of holding the future inside our womb. All who see this beautiful world come out of us. That is why it is often said that God could not be present everywhere so he created the Mother.

The moment you hold your child for the first time, you are no more alone even in your thoughts. You think of your child first before thinking about yourself.

This is in a way designed by nature as with mother lies the responsibility to develop the child into a man and for him the world a better place to live. This is a divine role that a mother plays. He develops a child into a contributing member of society and makes him future-ready for all his history-making accomplishments. In the classroom called life, a mother is a timeless teacher. Just like a potter shapes up a pot, a mother shape up the future of their children.

 There is no formula for becoming an efficient mother because every child is different and so different are their behaviors.

Being a mother has become more challenging in today’s perspective. The ideas of good parenting have changed a lot over the last fifty years. Moreover, for us who are in their 40s, the challenges are more. The reason being your child is no more a toddler that you can dictate him. He/she is either in their teens or approaching it. So, they have developed their own liking and disliking and have created own ideas about life. The tremendous technological advancement led to bring early maturity in them.

Like me, you are also experiencing many behavioral changes in your child. Just a few years back you had a child who adored you and now you have a teenager who is criticizing your actions. Once who enjoyed only your company now wants to hang out more with friends. You can hardly let him/her move away from his mobile phone or the laptop where he is busy surfing the you tube or Instagram! So, how can we as a mother deal with this and yet remain happy and blissful.

Let me share my ideas to be a great mother(of a teenager) who is confident in herself, efficient and effective.

We have to remember that motherhood is not guided by any set formula. You need to very observant and patient to develop your own strategies towards becoming an ideal mother. My propositions may help you rethink and ponder upon your actions towards your child. To simplify the things lets us divide our perspective of mothering a young child in two parts, one ‘what we should do and the other, what we should not while parenting our children.

The Do’s

Your child is going through adolescence and it is a period in life when both the body and the mind go through a series of changes. There is reshaping of the body, mind and, psychology of the child. In addition to it, the tremendous technological advancement has left its impact on your child. He spends much of his time using computers, for studying and for playing games. This has brought a  change in their ability to communicate or interact with other people especially you. Now he is more connected to the world by means of his mobile phone or laptop. This has not only made him more prone to psychological disorders like attention disorder, anxiety, and depression but also changing the way he communicates learns, sleep, and exercises. So you need to be very patient and empathetic towards him.

1)   Keep the communication channel open: Always try to communicate with your kid. He may refrain from it but keep your cool. Good communication starts only with good listening. Whenever your child is saying something, however, irrelevant it may appear to you and whatever work you are doing, give him good listening without being judgmental. Let him clear his point of view before you respond. A good listener always earns trust. If you can earn his trust half of your job is done. Give your opinion only if he asks for it. Mind it no one likes to be lectured.

2)   Develop yourself: “Actions speak louder than words”. Your child is always monitoring your actions. So when you are dealing with a generation which is technologically advanced, try to groom your self accordingly. Educated yourself with all the social media sites generally explored by teenagers. Try to be tech savvy. Update yourself with all current affairs. Try to be fit and attractive. Try to be a role model for your child. This will improve their confidence in you and will help you understand them better.

3)   Spend quality time with your kid: As a mother, we all know how important it is to spend time with our kid. But keep in mind that studies suggest, teenagers need quality time with their parents more than toddlers do. Your child at this adolescent years is going through psychological turbulence where he/she needs your support and attention. Teenage girls are most needy around age 13-14, while boys are more insecure at 16-17. Academic performance pressure together with appearance obsession makes them more insecure. You can spend quality time with your child by taking every day dinner together, by helping him in studies, sometimes just go to a movie together. This will also help you to openly communicate with him. Make it a habit to turn off the TV, laptops and cell phones while you are spending time with your kid. This  is an important thing to be together without distraction

4)   Encourage your child: You need to understand and and accept your kid’s strengths and weaknesses and help him develop his strength. Encourage your child to explore a variety of activities and find areas of expertise. Encouragement will enhance their self-esteem and motivate them to achieve better. Praise sincerely and honestly. Honest praises are encouraging, whereas insincere praises can easily be identified and are harmful. A simple way of how you can encourage your teenage child is by valuing their thoughts and opinions rather than imposing yours. Take interest in their interests and help them pursue it.

5)   Trust your child: This is easier to write than follow. But if you can come out of the parental fear and create an atmosphere of trust with your teenager, it is sure that he will have trust in you and will come back to you when in despire. So it is better to stop snooping through their mobile phones and diaries and check online activities. Set up your rules but respect their privacy. You have to accept that your child may have secrets which are not to be shared with you. Also, remember that breaches of trust are normal, so don’t take it personally if your teen breaks their word. Give your child another chance to regain your trust. If you see more trustworthy behavior, give more freedom. On the contrary, if there is a repeated break of trust, you may need help.

6)   Show your humor side: A good sense of humor is a strong point of a confident personality. It is often well appreciated by all. A sense of humor may be a connecting link between you and your kid. Show your child that you can laugh at times. Let your children see you as a person, not always just as a parent. Your child will learn the humor aspect from you which will help him in his stress hours.

7)   Empower your kid: We should not forget that in a few years our teens are going to be adults. They will need to take strong decisions then. Let them learn to take decisions now. To empower is to infuse the sense of ability. Help them work through the pros and cons of difficult choices in order to build decision-making skills. Decision making will improve only by doing mistakes. Let them face the consequence of taking a wrong decision and learn from their mistakes. This will let them grow and mature with their own experience, just as we did.

8)   Set clear boundaries around your child: Being empathetic towards your kid or empowering them does not mean that they are free to do anything. Make your expectations clear to them and set definite boundaries. It is an important aspect of mothering a teenager as it will make them learn to be responsible. Establish rules and clear consequences of breaking those rules. Setting boundaries for teenagers will help them learn to set their own boundaries. Reprimand them if they go out of the boundary.

9)   Give some space to your teens: Another aspect of setting boundaries is to give your child the space they deserve. Teens need space to discover themselves as separate beings from their families. At this age, friends and peers become more important than parents. So if your child is in no mood to talk to you just do not take it too seriously.

10)    Love your child unconditionaly: As a mother, we all love our kids. But is that love unconditional? Do our children acknowledge our love as unconditional love? when as a mother you show affection to your children, even when they make mistakes or fall short of expectations, that is unconditional love. In other words, it is a form of love with no tag attached. Often our children are stressed to bear the load of our expectations. You need to show your love to them. Hug them. Tell them that you love them frequently even if your teenager doesn't say it back to you.

Dealing with a teenager needs lots of empathy and patience on the part of the mother. We often loose our temper in the way they present themselves. Try to understand how exactly your kid is feeling? Remember that teens want to shock their parents. If your teenagers want to dye their hair, paint their fingernails black, or wear funky clothes, think twice before you object. It's better to let them do something temporary and harmless; save your objections for things that really matter, like tobacco, drugs, and alcohol, or permanent changes to their appearance.

The Don’ts

1)   Stop being a ‘helicopter mother’:  A helicopter mother is one who pays unnecessary attention to their kids in such a way that they appear to hover over the kid’s head like a helicopter. If you are such a mother, stop being so over protective. As you are doing more harm than good to your child. Research shows that kids of helicopter parents lack problem solving capacities and had to depend on others for all decisions in life.

2)   Don’t try to change your child:  every child is special in their own way. Never try to change your child’s nature. No one liked to be changed or molded, especially teens. Your attitude to change his behavior may make them feel awkward and insecure about themselves. Instead, love them the way they are. If your kid is stubborn and does not give an ear to what you say, change your parenting pattern.

3)   Don’t compare your kid with others: This is a common mistake which we all do. A child is generally compared with others to ascertain his or her academic performance and lit up the spark of competitiveness in them. But does it really work? Every child has got their own talents and aspirations. Your continuous comparison can make him introvert and shy. He may loose his self esteem and self worth. Moreover, this also results in sibling rivalry in some cases. Just check whether you are over stressing your child with your own expectations.

4)   Don’t over criticize: We all know the ill effects of criticism in our lives and relationship. How badly we feel when we are being continuously criticized at work or at home. Yet we do the same thing with our children. Though we try to justify it as our concern towards them to make them successful. That does not change the truth. Continuous criticism will lead to anger and defiance in your kid. Sometime we may do it out of our anxiety towards them and consider it to be a piece of advice for them to be successful in the competitive world. You will definitely give advice but don’t be over critical as this will make them secretive and unwilling to communicate.

5)   Don’t be judgmental: We tend to judge our kids all the time when they do things in their own way rather that the way we want them to do. We as mothers definitely want to teach and train our children well, but instead of being authoritative we can choose to do it in a nurturing way.

Children of a judgmental mother can be emotionally insecure. They generally crave their parents’ acceptance and approval. All this effects their academics and social behavior. They may get attracted to others from where they are getting attention and approval.

6)    Don’t accept disrespect: Disrespectful behavior from teenagers has become quite common now a days. The actual truth being, this is a way teenagers try to solve their problems. When a teenager is subjected to our expectations and criticism they feel powerless. Disrespectful behavior is one way to get back the power. How can we as a mother don’t accept such disrespect yet deal with it? Just try to build mutual respect. Respect your child's point of view. Respecting a teen’s feelings is not the same as giving them everything they want It is impossible to teach an adolescent to show respect by displaying disrespect. Shouting, scolding and humiliating your kid will only result in the same tactic being used by him against you. Never engage yourself in an unnecessary argument with him because that is what he wants. Rather be calm and try to push yourself out of the situation.

A mother’s dream is to see her children grow up to be healthy, happy and successful………enjoy the dream.