Bringing up kids the right way...

Which really is the right way to bring up kids? On one side, from the West, we hear the version of giving kids rights even before they could learn right or wrong. You could be hauled off by the Police if you so much as smack your misbehaving kids. In Norway, an Indian couple was accused of making the children sleep with them and feeding them - the couple lost the custody of their children to the Norwegian authorities and the last time I read about it, the Indian government was making representations on their behalf.

They called it a violation of children’s rights - we call it normal parental behaviour in this part of the world. Of course we feed our children with our hands and they sleep with the parents. That is normal behaviour for Asians in most Asian cultures. Also, in Asian cultures, we do not leave them alone to make their own decisions at least until they are old enough to make them.

While children are entitled to rights relevant to their well-being, they are not old enough to understand access to other rights - particularly the teenagers. They need to be loved, nurtured and guided - along with a dose of tough love. Tough love works in empowering them to do the right things and take the right decisions.

Child psychologists

One influencing factor has been the movies. Watching movies that encourage and teach kids to talk back to their parents and generally engage in adult behaviour should not be encouraged. An effective rule that works is to set out guidelines that specify the kind of behaviour required until the time they leave home. Children need limits - in fact, as child psychologists put it, even the misbehaving children look for limits. They behave best within clearly identified guidelines.

Giving children too much freedom especially when they are too young to understand the consequences of that freedom, is detrimental to both the child and the parent. Around us we see the results of children given too much freedom. There are children as young as 15 in night clubs and hanging around with members of the opposite sex. You can buy children the most expensive treats but that does not convey love. Neither does permissive behaviour. The moral decay in most advanced societies started with withholding tough love. Permissiveness will not get a child on to the right track but tough love will.

Some of us as parents cannot say no to children. Some of us would do anything to keep them quiet and pacified. That really is not the way it should be done. Ideally, children learn best when they learn by example. If we fail as parents to live up to the level expected of us, they too will not follow.

Love and discipline

Children of today face issues unfaced by previous generations. Abuse, divorce, parental conflict, a high level of academic expectation and other such criteria usually scar a child for a lifetime. A child will thrive on the right dose of love and discipline and will always benefit from it.

It is good to encourage children to talk and have fellowship with parents - some of us are even confident enough to say we are friends with our kids. But being friends does not mean they or we have the right to do as we please. As parents and children, we need to establish boundary lines and stick to those. Respect for parents is a vital area that must be established and adhered to. Before a child learns to respect the law, he or she must learn to respect parents and elders.

However exposed we may be by Western values and cultural elements, we must always teach our children to remember that they are Sri Lankan - being so, we have certain values that we practise. Such values are not to be ridiculed but to be respected and passed on from one generation to another.

In the global village, where kids are exposed to the world daily, it is difficult but worth the try to set limits, love them and give them the kind of upbringing they would be thankful for.