The Scene staff
Imagine you’re a gardener and you want to grow beautiful flowers. You hope to attract visitors with their beauty, elegance and maybe even their fragrance. You know that you won’t use pesticides, or synthetic or sewage-based fertilizers.
To achieve this, you amend the soil and make sure that sunlight and water are adequate. You’re constantly monitoring plant development. The approach you take depends on the type of flowers. Some thrive on minimal attention while others need much more. Some gardeners are known to even talk or sing to seeds or plants to give them a little extra love.
You, the gardener, have done everything to allow the flowers to bloom.
Once the flowers have grown, you admire their beauty from a distance. You know you still have a role in their life as they still need season-long care, but you know the key is to not overdo it. If you do, the plants may perish.
Now imagine you’re a parent. Like the gardener, parents must feed their children and provide the right type of foundation for them to flourish.
Parents face a fine line between teaching and brainwashing. Some parents raise children in their image, hoping they will become just like them. They’re not always raising them to become independent.
Parents may build them in a way they always wanted to be brought up. They’re raising them to compensate for how their parents fell short.
In turn, they may be forgetting that their own children have feelings and thoughts of their own. Much that gets put in their heads is not thought out, like what to believe, what to eat or what culture they should embrace.
Compared to the gardener, these parents are more restrictive. The gardener allows plants to grow unimpeded.
When children are born, religion typically becomes a big part of their lives. They’re raised thinking there is only one way to worship. When children learn about other religions, their parents may imply that their God overpowers the others.
While many parents don’t let children express interest in other religions, I believe that they should be allowed to express such interest.
Parents should not be afraid of teaching their children about other religions. If they teach them what each religion practices, they will grow up to become more understanding of others.
What parents overlook is that their children are born through them. They may be tiny and dependent on you, but they are learning how to think for themselves. Like adults, children have feelings, ideas and emotions that can be dismissed.
They’re often dismissed because the parent thinks children don’t know any better.
If parents took the time to listen and understand, children would grow up to be more confident in themselves.
If parents would stop giving everything they never had and give children what they need or what they love, it would give them more creative freedom to grow.
For example, food is an essential part of life. It is meant to be enjoyed. With that said, we should let the little people eat what they want.
If children want to eat chips for dinner, and parents disagree, they can compromise. They can eat chips as long as they eat their broccoli, pasta and an apple. It makes both children and parents happy. It’s a win-win situation.
Parenting would be more exciting if parents worked with their children as if they were a part of a team. They could ask what children want and respect them as individuals while setting healthy boundaries and rules.
In a relationship, we compromise to make sure the other person is happy. The same should be done with children. We should compromise to make them happy.
We should let our children bloom like flowers.