Archive for October 12th, 2007
"Roots & Wings"
Recently I was in a training workshop in my company. The participants were from different departments in the company hence all of us were different in terms of our professional qualification and experience besides the obvious difference in our outlook. One of the exercises was to come up in front of the group and give an impromptu talk about a topic picked from the list on the board in front of us. One lady picked the topic ‘children’ and one thing she said (she admitted to having picked it from some book) was really a great way to look at parenting. In my growing years, I have seen parents of my friends being either completely lenient to the extent of actually not being bothered about their kids or parents who are stern and strict all the time. Luckily, I was blessed to have moderate parents. I and my brother were given enough freedom, but we knew our limits. Given this dilemma of nurturing children without being restrictive to their cognitive growth, how can parents be taught to strike the right balance? Well, the answer to that was summed up by the lady in the training workshop like this, Parenting should be viewed in terms of a duality – of roots and wings. Parents should give their children roots of values and wings of independence. This would ensure they turn out well.” It couldn’t have been said more aptly. I am sure there are a thousand other things to say about parenting. But this one is simply beautiful.
