Parenting tips – Does one need to go online to learn how to treat a child?

We thank child psychologist Neer Malik for sharing his thoughts on the topic.

Our Indian culture has traditionally looked up to the elders to guide us on how to treat and handle our children on several accounts. With changing mindset and growing nuclear family culture, people started looking up to trained child psychologist to seek advice for their problems related to child, shifting focus from ‘their own inabilities and lack of sufficient emphasis on child’ to a ‘perceived child problem’.

With the advent of internet, parents trained their hopes on online parenting tips. While some websites provide a range of tips, others provide a window for interacting with child psychologist. Both kind of parenting websites aim to help parents improvise the way they deal with the child. Parents have a range of questions for a possibly fussy/sedate/angry/mischievous child. A vast database of related resources are available online but that brings us to the question whether online parenting really helps? The plethora of suggestions available online are perhaps more confusing than the original state of parents. Is this layer of complexity required? Isn’t dealing with children quite straightforward? Why are online resources suggesting moving away from traditional ways of parenting? Why are we moving West for parenting tips when the simple yet efficient Indian parenting concepts have helped bring up the best in the child keeping him/her away from unnecessary distraction? Why complicate things?

Shouldn’t these couple of age old suggested steps be good enough to get the best of your child:

1) Give sufficient time to the child: A child seeks attention and needs attention. Give sufficient time to your child out of your daily routine. First few years of child growth are critical. Devote enough time on a daily basis towards your child. Leave your job if you have a backup or if you can. Smart phones should be done away with. As simple as that. Elders around would only help meet child’s need.

2) Doing right things in front of the child: We all know whats wrong and whats right. We just don’t do right all the time. But, ensure you always do whats right in front of the child.

3) Don’t pamper your child beyond a point: A fine balance of love and discipline has to be maintained. Do not overdo your affection for the child so much so that it spoils him/her.

Comments/Feedback invited.

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Last Updated on April 13, 2016 by Go4Reviews