We are raising children, not flowers : The secret statement successful parents understand

"My next-door neighbours taught me a great lesson one day as I watched the father teach his seven-year-old son how to push the mower. As he was teaching the kid how to turn the mower, his wife called him to ask a question. As the father turned to answer his wife, the kid pushed the mower over a bed of flowers and destroyed the beautiful garden his father had been nurturing for a long time."

This story was told by Laura Markham, author of Peaceful Parent.

What would you say to your child if he does this to you? Your reaction in a situation like this would determine if you know that one big secret every successful parent knows.

When the child destroyed the flower his father had spent a lot of time cultivating to become the envy of the neighborhood, the father reacted like most parents would: he lost control over himself and raised his voice higher in rage, then that moment, his wife gave that one big secret out, she said, " please remember we are raising children, not flowers".

That is the secret! Successful parents in this father's shoes understand that they are raising children, not flowers. Now how does this make them successful?

This simple statement demonstrates one thing: the man and his wife were conscious parents. They parented consciously, and in everything they were doing, their biggest concern was: "what do the kids learn from this? How do we make them better from this incident?"

Most parents in the father's shoes would think about how the kid has destroyed their efforts, disfigured the garden, and humiliated them. Conscious parents would think about one thing: "what can we teach this child from this incident?"

A random parent would vent his displeasure, shout at the kid, and probably even hit the kid while repeating, "you have destroyed the flowers, you are too stubborn. you are too forward. are you happy now?" Of course, he is not! Because he did not mean to destroy the flowers, he simply meant to use the mower on the lawn.

When you react this way, the child focuses on your words and actions and finds it hard to pick his mistakes. In most cases, one of two things happen: either the child learns that "oh, I got shouted at because I tried something new out" and the child becomes scared to try new things out on their own and become dull children who only wait to be instructed before doing anything or he does not even think about what he did at all, and rather he focuses on the hurt you have caused him. Either way, the kid would be scared of trying something new out with you next time. Slowly, you are creating a very nice foundation for destroying the connection and longing to be with you.

Now, a conscious parent would look at the situation and try to figure out what exactly the child did wrong and calmly address the issue.

In the case of a child like the one in the story, a conscious parent would identify the lessons to teach the child and the right thing he did.

A conscious parent might say, in a very calm way that does not shift the child's focus from his action to his parent's anger: "Do you like that you have disfigured the flowers? You disfigured them because you did not adjust the mower the right way before using it on the flowers. And you should have waited for me to teach you that before trying it out. So now, I will not allow you to use the mower for three days so that you can remember to ask to be taught before using it the next time. So watch me now..."

While watching, the parent might add: "When I was young, my father bought me an MP3 player but I destroyed it after three days." The kid would ask why, and the parent would go on to talk about how he used the mp3 player without waiting for instructions.

And maybe at night, the mother could go into the child's room and tell him: "your dad spent a lot on that flower, you should apologize to him. And what exactly do you think you did wrong?"

Now let us compare!

For both parents A and B in our examples, the flowers will not grow back. For the first parent, the child would go inside and maybe sleep unhappy. He would start to develop hatred for going out with his father, and he will learn nothing new.

In the second case, the child will learn from his parent's calmness even when he is hurt, he will learn the right way to adjust the mower for the flowers, he will develop a close relationship with his father and look forward to learning more from him, he will be able to reflect over his mistakes and he will not be scared to be responsible or try challenges, he would only learn to wait for instructions.

The only difference between these two parents is that one secret: "We are raising children, not flowers" That is, the most important thing to us in this situation is: "What can the child learn?"

This idea comes under the principle of conscious parenting, and conscious parenting is the one thing that separates successful parents from unsuccessful ones.

How do we apply this beautiful principle to all other aspects of our children's lives? And applying this principle is certainly going to be challenging, how can we convince ourselves that the stress is worth it?

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(This particle is a part of Naas Educators family engagement campaign aimed at increasing awareness towards the need for more and healthier engagements within families. Anticipate the release of our full family engagement brochure soon)

Written by: Abdurrahman Olanrewaju Adedokun