Is Your Child Ready To Face The World?

"Is your Child Ready to Face the World" by Dr Anupam Sibal. It's a wonderful book, I must say. These days managing children is becoming more onerous. I think the main reason behind this is parents and children they don't 'try' to understand each other's point of view.

As my children are grown up now, they are no more a teenager, they are old enough to face the world on their own. Therefore, I can completely co-relate this book with me. I have managed my children in their toddler stage, in their teenager state and still managing in their young-enough-to-face-the-world state. Parenting continuously requires a tremendous amount of effort.

Someone seriously said it right that "If you want to change the world, start with yourself first". So as I am a parent, I should first look at what I can do to make my parenting skills more effective rather than forcing my children to obey me.

Generally, we parents tend to drive our hopes and wishes on our children. We force our children to take certain streams which according to us are right, we generally don't give much importance to our children's dreams because we think they are not old enough to make right decisions about their future at such a young age. Which when I went through the book, I found it completely wrong. Children have full right to dream. Because dream does certainly come true with an adequate amount of persistence and hard work. So make your child a dreamer!

Also, help your children to 'find their calling'. Assist them in very thin and thick. Be their friend first. If your child wants to be a footballer rather than an engineer or a doctor than it is completely ok! After all, in the end, we want our children to be happy. Who knows your child became one of the great footballers of the world one day. But certainly, make sure that your children are compassionate enough to follow their heart.

This book stated the examples of many great legends like Mahatma Gandhi Ji, Martin Luther King Jr, Lincoln, Mother Teresa, Sachin Tendulkar and many more. They have their different stories to get inspired. But few things I found common in their stories, they all were dreamers, they followed their heart, they were strong enough to stand against the odds and they were compassionate enough. So, we as parents must help our children to acquire these qualities. So that he/she can become a role model to someone else.

- Kalpana Jain

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The Iconic School, Bhopal