What’s your number one parenting tip?
So I have decided to share some parenting/homeschooling tips daily, starting from today until the end of our quarantine, insha’Allah. I hope I will be able to stick to my daily deadline-which means I have to put aside time for writing every day.
Please feel free to share them if you find them useful. (you can share from my FB page Raising Scholars inshaAllah)
Day one- unconditional love
I got married and started a family relatively early. Let’s put it this way- by the time most of my friends got married- I had two or three children. Nothing to brag about here as none of it was planned. It just happened the way it did for whatever reasons. (Growing up- I was always a career-focused girl who would say “Will start a family only after I establish a career” Oh boy- those days are long gone. LOL)
Anyway, when my friends had their first babies, they would often ask me “As someone who is got more experience as a mother, what is one thing you would advise me to do?” I used to find this question so challenging, not because I didn’t know what to say. Rather, I had so much to say and couldn’t put it into words. If you have been a mother for at least five years, let me ask you now: If you could advise the first-time mum one thing- what would be your one piece of advice?
Years later, I believe I finally got the answer which I can put in one sentence. Maybe even one-word. What we all need to do as a mother is this- love them. That’s right my dear sister, you only have to love them. Love them UNCONDITIONALLY that is!
Love them in those moments when they least deserve your love. Loving them unconditionally means loving them during those moments when you believe they deserve your spanking, your moaning, your lecturing, your yelling, your complaining. I am talking about moments when your toddler is screaming in a store; when your preschooler brings a box of crayons from her school (which you know she wasn’t gifted); when you discover lighter and matches in your son’s room; when your daughter is having an emotional meltdown over Mathematics lesson, when children are afraid and cry over something that you think “So silly to be afraid of!” or “So stupid to cry about!”
Many of us often resort to “Naughty girl!” or “Bad boy!” during those moments. I, for one, seem to have forgotten about my own behaviour as a child. Surely, there must have been moments when I gave my parents a hard time. And the truth is, children aren’t bad, they are just little. They are just learning. And yet we don’t often show empathy as needed which leads them to the belief that they are not understood.
Feeling all alone with emotions and thoughts that seem unacceptable to parents is one of the great burdens of childhood. And one thing I have repeatedly experienced in myself and in my children is this- a reaction that increases one’s sense of self-hatred can bring about more of the same behaviour. Because you can’t make someone behave well by making them feel worse about themselves.
My sister, loving them unconditionally is extremely difficult because most of us have been conditioned to give love and attention only when children achieve something good. And yet it is only when we give unconditional love- we will be doing the greatest service for their future. It is only when you give love unconditionally you will feel satisfied and at peace with yourself. It is only when we give love unconditionally, we function most powerfully as a mother. As for our children, they behave much better when they feel seen, heard and understood with the power of unconditional love.
