3 Metaphors for Effective Parenting
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So, I will summarize what I spoke. I started by speaking about how we can link parenting with primarily our human journey and I spoke more as a human being, facing the challenge of guiding anyone. And I talked about in parenting broadly there can be three metaphors, does anyone remember three metaphors? Pottery.
Pottery. Pottery. Gardening.
Gardening. Driving. Driving, yeah.
So, in pottery, it's primarily we shape the pot. In driving, in gardening, it's the seed itself grows, we just facilitate its growth. And in driving, it's more that each person has their own car, but we teach them driving skills and give them broad directions.
So, often balance requires us to shift between different metaphors, but the idea is we need to help them grow in a way that is effective. And then that PGD3 metaphor, parents need to guide in a detached way, detachedly. Detached means lack of, not lack of emotion, but lack of emotional dependence.
Both emotional dependence on the child, oh, my child should not be displeased with me, and emotional dependence on society, what will people think of? Then detachment means that we recognize that a 14-year-old can't think like a 21-year-old, so we be patient. Detachment means that, I talk about, we hear them out, we reinforce the desired behavior. Don't take their harsh words or their unreasonable actions personally, because they are in an identity confusion in their teenage years.
So help them understand themselves. And when they hear, when they want to speak, just hear them. And even if we have to give a judgment, first hear them out.
And with respect to giving judgment, don't be judgmental. That means don't be prescriptive or normative, be descriptive. And then lastly, I talked about how in our journey, I actually started by talking about how guidance like Drona gave can be common as well as customized.
So to draw the long circle around that, when we are guiding, that at that time, we can give enlightenment, we can give encouragement, and we can give engagement, by which they will grow. And the relationship is more important than the specific choice or the specific result. Be patient, then gradually they will find their way and they will eventually be on the right track.
Thank you very much. Hare Krishna. So do we have some time? Ten minutes.
Ten minutes. Okay, thank you. So any reflections? Yes, please.