Blog - A Fine Parent

Are You Really a Good Parent?

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Self Awareness series. Get free article updates here.)

(This article is part of our series on self awareness)

You’re not a good parent — there I said it!

Just think of it. Right now, you could be watching TV. Or facebooking/pinteresting. Or reading a fantastic book. But here you are – reading a personal development blog meant exclusively for parents!

You are not a good parent… You are a @#&*ing awesome parent!

And yet….

In spite of being the awesome parent that you are, in spite of being the cream of the crop and rising above the average, when I said “You are not a good parent” you felt a tiny bit of guilt. And a sense of self doubt.

Why?

To many of you I am just a stranger. To some who read the blog regularly (Thank You!), I am a good acquaintance. And to a very small set of poor unfortunate folks, I am a close friend/family 🙂

But, no matter how much or how little I know you, the fact remains – I am a third party when it comes to your kids, your values, your circumstances, your kids’ temperament and a whole list of other variables. I have absolutely no right to even dare comment on your parenting skills, let alone judge it.

You know that.

But still, when you read the words “You are not a good parent”, even though you were probably (and, rightfully) pissed off with me, there was that tiny bit of self-doubt in the background making you wonder if I was right.

Every parent that I know of – no matter what their parenting style is or how their children eventually turn out – struggles with this self doubt at some point or the other.

So, today let’s explore it a bit.

The Self-Doubt Snowball

[Read more…]

Do You Want To Be a Great Parent or Raise a Great Child? (Hint: They Are NOT the Same)

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Self Awareness series. Get free article updates here.)

(This article is part of our series on self awareness)

Recently, my daughter and I were at a party at her friend’s place. There must have been 8 or 10 girls, all of the same age there. Many of us parents were meeting each other for the first time. We all wanted our kids to behave the best and make us proud.

You’ve been in such a situation before, right? You’re at a party, or a get together, or some kind of gathering and you desperately want your kids to behave so everyone can see what a great parent you are. Your chest swells with pride when your kids behave appropriately, and you feel sad for the poor parent whose kids are acting out.

Here’s the thing though. Life is not all black or white. If you did a good job as a parent, yes, perhaps your child(ren) will behave well. If you’re a lousy parent, yes, they might misbehave.

Between these two black-and-white cases though lies the fact that your kids are human. No matter how well you parent, or how much they would like to behave, unless you raise a robot with no emotions and feelings, there will be cases where they’ll just not behave the way you want them to.

The Bigger Picture

Now broaden that expectation a little more. We all want our kids to succeed. Yes, we want them to succeed for their own sakes. But we also want them to succeed for our sakes. Because their success validates what good parents we’ve been.

We want them to score the highest in the tests. We want them to be the class toppers. We want them to win medals in sports. We want them to gain recognition in extra curriculars.

If they fail, somehow we fail.

So we prod them on. To be successful. At all costs.

[Read more…]

Topic of the Month: Self Awareness

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Self Awareness series. Get free article updates here.)

A lot of the contention and confusion in parenting comes because often we don’t really know what we want! This month, let’s spend some time to understand who we are, what we stand for, what we want from our families, and life in general; so we can be more clear and intentional in our parenting! This page will be a placeholder for all the articles related to this topic. I will publish the first article today along with this page, and then update this page every Monday as a new article is published. For any reason, if you cannot play along just yet, you may want to bookmark this page so you can come back to it later. The most effective way to ensure that you don’t miss any articles is of course to sign up for the free weekly email notifications. Ok, here we go –

20 Ways to Say No to Kids Without Using the Word “No”

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Be Positive series. Get free article updates here.)

Think of one of those crappy days you sometimes have – one of those days where nothing goes right – your to-do list keeps getting longer instead of shorter, deadlines get pushed in instead of out, everybody you meet seems set on driving you nuts… the works.

The only thing that keeps you from flipping the moron who cut you off in the crawling traffic on the way home, is the thought of your favorite ice cream waiting for you in your freezer.

Ah, the cool, creamy, deliciousness!

When you get home, you head straight for the freezer. As you are about to get that long awaited spoon of solution-to-everything-goodness into your mouth, your spouse walks in and shouts “No! What do you think you are doing? You can’t have ice cream now — it’s almost time for dinner! Put that right back!”

Your reaction would be to –

a) Show eternal gratitude towards your spouse for caring so much about you
b) Pick up the biggest darned fight that would make Attila the Hun proud.

You know where I am going with this.

As parents we get so wrapped up in raising our kids right, that we forget to treat our kids right.

We forget that they are little people who go through ups and downs in their day, who have feelings and get frustrated and exasperated just like we do. And we talk to them in a way that would never be acceptable for a spouse/boss/friend to talk to us.

As fine parents in the making, shouldn’t we be looking for nicer ways to say “no”?

Well, here are 20 different ways to say “no” so they don’t even realize you’re saying a no.

I will use the simple scenario that it’s almost supper time, and my daughter wants M&Ms and I need to say “no”. Keep in mind, that this is just an example scenario and these tactics should work equally well for other circumstances too.

And last but not the least, lest you think I am the superwoman of patient communication…. I did not come up with any of these… I just put them together into a list 🙂

OK, here we go.
[Read more…]

Positive Discipline 101: How to Discipline a Child in a Way That Actually Works

by Sumitha Bhandarkar.
(This article is part of the Be Positive series. Get free article updates here.)

Let’s play a quick word association game.

I will say one word, and you will say the first thing that comes to your mind when you read that word. Don’t think for long. Just say the first word that occurs to you. OK, here we go.

Sky.

Night.

Discipline.

Chances are, when you read “sky” the first word that came to your mind was “blue” or “high”.

When you read “night” you might think of the words “dark” or “day”.

What about “discipline”? What did you think of when you read that? In my case, I would probably have gone with “punishment” or “set right”.

The idea of discipline being synonymous with punishment is ingrained in our psyche. The first thing we think of when we hear the word “discipline” is usually something negative.

However, did you know that the word discipline originates from the Latin word ‘disciplina’ which means teaching, which in turn comes from ‘discipulus’ which literally translates to pupil?

Yet, I can bet that very few who tried the little exercise above would have thought “teach” when they first read the word “discipline”.

For whatever reason, over the years, discipline has gone from meaning “to teach” to “to punish”!

Today we explore “positive discipline” an idea that focuses on reverting things back to the roots – when children do something wrong, instead of punishing them, parents teach and guide them to set the behavior right.

So, how do we go back from “to punish” to “to teach”? In small baby steps, of course!

Here are a few tips to get started, and by following some of these (pick a subset of the ones that work for you), slowly we can change our perspective about “discipline”. [Read more…]