When it comes to children; parents need to be on the same page!

I am father to 2 teenagers and God has blessed me with a girl and a boy — in other words, I have a complete family!

Although my wife and I don’t agree on any subject under the sun, I strongly feel that that should not be the case when it comes to your children.

Having grown up myself and also having watched my children grow, I have come to realise that the needs of our children change as they age.

They require your time and attention during their formative years and then they start avoiding your company like the bubonic plague! This transition happens during their teenage years; when you, as parents, are no longer required except for seeking finances to fund their expenditure.

In other words, parents transition from ‘parents’ to being ‘pay-rents’.

Having said that, I have enumerated a few points below that would help the readers understand why it is important for parents to be on the same page while interacting with their kids:-

1. Confusing Messages — It is important to have a common ground else our children get confused with the messages that you try to convey and they, inadvertently, lean toward the message that suits their particular need (irrespective of whether or not the other message is more beneficial)
2. Partiality — Children tend to be partial to the parent who is partial to them!
3. Spoil — Inconsistencies in the messages from the parents tend to spoil the children as they can easily blame their own faults on the parents who are at loggerheads in terms of opinions.
4. Avoidance — Children will avoid the parent who doesn’t cater to their whims and fancies as they know that that they shall be advised, lectured or criticized and they, being human, would like to avoid such an encounter.
5. Upstaging — The children taking sides will automatically lead to one parent upstaging the other which, in turn, would lead to further rifts amongst the parents.
6. Inconsistencies — The inconsistencies shall give rise to the children taking sides for or against a parent based on thr conduciveness of the parent’s views with regards to the children.

Our children are our blessing and are God’s gift to us. It is important to nurture them to help them become mature and well rounded individuals and the teenage years are the moments of truth when it comes to effective learning.

Hence, it is imperative that we, as parents, ensure that we do not give them mixed signals as they learn from observing us and then carry that observation forward in their lives.

Remember, a child will either copy a few of your traits to the T or shall be the exact opposite of what you are in terms of behaviour.

For example, if a father happens to be a drunk — one child may feel it is absolutely fine to start drinking since his/her father drank or, on the other hand, the child may never drink since he/she watched the father making a fool of himself!

We, as parents, can only help them choose wisely by demonstrating appropriate behaviour rather than setting a wrong example and guiding them down a downward spiral of falling dominoes and so-called generational curses!

The choice is ours, let’s choose wisely!