Parenting in the 21st Century

There is no perfect parent. The fact is that all parents make mistakes, and that children are often resilient enough to deal with these parenting mistakes. With the exception of extreme circumstances, such as, violent and abusive homes, most homes do provide the nurturing and protective environment that children need. Ideally, homes provide beyond survival needs and also cater to the psychological needs I discussed in a previous post.


As we struggle towards being a better parent, it is often important to begin with an understanding of oneself. That’s right. We need to know ourselves fairly well in order to be a good parent. That’s where it all begins. What such things do you need to know about yourself? For starters, you might want to answer the following questions:

• How was I parented by my own parents/caregivers? In what ways do I want to do things similarly and in what ways do I want to do things differently with my own children? 
• What is important to me? What are the most important things I want my children to learn from me?
• What are my strengths as a person and how am I able to use these with my children?
• What are my areas of weakness and how do they compromise my good parenting strategies?
• Given the areas of my history, my values, my strength and weaknesses, how do I see myself as a parent? In what ways can I further improve?

The next element in becoming a good parent is in knowing your child well. As each child is different and reacts to you differently, so your strategies may also vary from one child to another. On one hand, we need to be nurturing towards each of our children. We need to accept them and affirm their reactions and ideas. On the other hand, we also need to exercise some level of control in setting clear and predictable limits. Similarly, we need be able to challenge our children enough so that they exert themselves and strive for something better for themselves. We need to do this in a way that is not too taxing and frustrating, given their personalities and talents.

In accomplishing these, you might want to ask yourself the following questions for each of your children:

• How does this particular child respond to me? What dynamics do I see between this child and myself?
• In what ways do I show and express my acknowledgment of this child’s talents, reactions, and ideas? Does this child know that I am acknowledging him/her?
• What are the strengths and areas of weakness of this child, given what is important to me as a parent?
• How responsive is my child in the ways that I challenge him/her in prompting him/her to improve him/herself?
• What changes do I need to make in order to balance the roles of being more accepting and responsive of this child while exerting some level of control and demand on this child’s abilities?

This process that I am proposing is not easy. It demands much introspection into oneself, which also often leads to a better understanding of others. Only when we are armed with such insights are we able to tweak our parenting strategies and become relevant to the children that we parent today.