Tough love
If we want the best for our children, we have to stand firm — not just for their sakes but for our own too
There isn’t a parent on this planet who doesn’t love their child. But is there such a thing as loving your child too much?
Three days before the recent Eidul Azha holidays, my friend called me up in panic. His elder daughter had just announced she wanted to marry her boyfriend of six months. She had been extremely rude to her father and then screamed at her mother when asked gently about the boy and his family.
The poor father kept saying, “We’ve sent them both to the best school, bought them everything they want, tried to be their friend and be cool. How could this happen?” In order to learn more, I approached a renowned life coach and friend. Let’s call him Doc, to ask him for his take on how to turn a happy and healthy child into a happy and successful adult. Seemed like a simple question, as was the reply I got. But Doc’s answer was very difficult to practise.
According to Doc, the key to parental success is ‘tough love’. The secret of ‘tough love’ is to hold your ground when a child misbehaves or throws a tantrum. What happens normally is that a child pushes your buttons to a point where you react and lose control of the situation. What one has to do, instead, is to distance oneself from the child till such time that the child realises his or her mistake.
With the modern day parent one, major problem is the fact that children have forgotten the boundary between parent and child. We are so focused on being our child’s friend that we forget about being a parent. Just the other day, my son Hamza said something funny but rude. I kept a straight face, told him that just because I am his friend he shouldn’t forget that I am his mother. Disrespect is unacceptable whether I am his friend or Mama.
Doc’s son, Ahmed, is a PhD student who also works as a motivational speaker and industrial psychologist. He told me six months ago that he has to give his father half of all his earnings from his seminars. I thought that was rather odd and Ahmed explained that this was his father’s fee for the time he put in preparing material for Ahmed’s speeches and presentations.
I remember calling up Doc and asking him why he had charged his own son? He replied quite seriously that he was charging Ahmed for his services. The point that Doc made to me was that he didn’t need the money, but he did need Ahmed to understand that nothing in life is for free and that even his father’s time was worth money. Finally, Doc wanted to make sure Ahmed did not take him for granted.
The truth is that when anyone is handed something on a silver platter, they start taking it for granted. Tough love is tough, not just on children, but on the parent as well. We’ve all been conditioned that it is not possible to love our children too much. But if we want the best for our children, we have to stand firm — not just for their sakes but for our own too.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 13th, 2014.
Three days before the recent Eidul Azha holidays, my friend called me up in panic. His elder daughter had just announced she wanted to marry her boyfriend of six months. She had been extremely rude to her father and then screamed at her mother when asked gently about the boy and his family.
The poor father kept saying, “We’ve sent them both to the best school, bought them everything they want, tried to be their friend and be cool. How could this happen?” In order to learn more, I approached a renowned life coach and friend. Let’s call him Doc, to ask him for his take on how to turn a happy and healthy child into a happy and successful adult. Seemed like a simple question, as was the reply I got. But Doc’s answer was very difficult to practise.
According to Doc, the key to parental success is ‘tough love’. The secret of ‘tough love’ is to hold your ground when a child misbehaves or throws a tantrum. What happens normally is that a child pushes your buttons to a point where you react and lose control of the situation. What one has to do, instead, is to distance oneself from the child till such time that the child realises his or her mistake.
With the modern day parent one, major problem is the fact that children have forgotten the boundary between parent and child. We are so focused on being our child’s friend that we forget about being a parent. Just the other day, my son Hamza said something funny but rude. I kept a straight face, told him that just because I am his friend he shouldn’t forget that I am his mother. Disrespect is unacceptable whether I am his friend or Mama.
Doc’s son, Ahmed, is a PhD student who also works as a motivational speaker and industrial psychologist. He told me six months ago that he has to give his father half of all his earnings from his seminars. I thought that was rather odd and Ahmed explained that this was his father’s fee for the time he put in preparing material for Ahmed’s speeches and presentations.
I remember calling up Doc and asking him why he had charged his own son? He replied quite seriously that he was charging Ahmed for his services. The point that Doc made to me was that he didn’t need the money, but he did need Ahmed to understand that nothing in life is for free and that even his father’s time was worth money. Finally, Doc wanted to make sure Ahmed did not take him for granted.
The truth is that when anyone is handed something on a silver platter, they start taking it for granted. Tough love is tough, not just on children, but on the parent as well. We’ve all been conditioned that it is not possible to love our children too much. But if we want the best for our children, we have to stand firm — not just for their sakes but for our own too.
Published in The Express Tribune, October 13th, 2014.