One word, I searched to describe the expectation of parents for above eight and below 12 children is ‘self- motivation’ As a parent, we have our side of stories to narrate how frustrating it is to ask a child regularly to do his routine task. The daily dose of preaching from parents sometimes becomes nagging and winging and turning a home environment into a negativity charged battle zone. At these moments of bitterness, one wish parents express – “I wish my child become a bit more ‘self-motivated’. To support the thought, we often wrap the core idea with negative or positive statements, depending on our mood for the day.

We all are quite familiar with negative wrapping sheet of thoughts such as “my child is not good enough”; “he is lazy”; “he doesn’t listen to the instructions carefully”. Some time along with the negative wrapping, we also put a guilt tag such as perhaps, I am not a good parent as I can’t give my child enough time.

Here, it is essential to highlight, as a parent feeling low is a normal reaction in the journey of motherhood, however, while communicating with your child, when venting out frustration becomes routine then its indeed time to check communication strategies with a child.

  Understandably, as a parent, we all do have expectations from a child and worrying about a child’s future is genuine. However, when the worry of a parent becomes an anxiety trap for a child, and he feels isolated and criticised, then it is wise to lower down the level of concern. Instead of the long term goal of fixing the life of a child in a day’s lecture, focus on short term objective. Such as how can we calm down a child, boost his confidence and create a supportive environment to let him self – motivated. The recipe of the self-motivation of a child consists of love, patience and forgiveness. Here, forgiveness is not the antonym of discipline; it denotes not to tease or reminds his mistakes on every occasion. For instance, sometimes we parents make a file of child’s complaint and errors. Afterwards, we drop the file on the head of the child on every time of committing an error. Hence, stop showing all the mistakes at a single point of time instead give feedbacks about single action at a given point of time.
These age groups try to find an identity outside there comfort zone and invariably commit mistakes as a parent take these moments as an opportunity to provide some constructive feedback. Let them navigate there journey good or bad instead then you try to show the right path. Trust your child as much as you trust yourself. Children are the best sailors; they don’t let their boat sink so quickly and easily.