Parenting is one of the toughest jobs anyone can have. Yet, as paediatrician Kishwar Enam notes in her article Finding Balance, most people become parents without any formal training in how to raise another human being.
https://share.google/nU5OCYj6Gd6AjIo6p. Sundaily
This matters greatly for Malaysian families today. Children are growing up in a world that looks nothing like the one their parents knew. Smartphones, social media, artificial intelligence, peer pressure and fast-changing social norms are now part of daily life.
The answer is not to tighten control over children, nor to give them endless freedom. Malaysian parents need to learn the hard art of balancing authority with independence.
Traditionally, many Asian families have stressed obedience, respect for elders, academic success and family reputation. These values have real strengths but obedience alone does not always produce mature adults who can make sound decisions.
A child should be able to question a parent's decision respectfully. Listening to a child does not mean giving up parental authority. It shows the child that their thoughts and feelings matter.
This matters most during the teenage years, when young people start building their own identities. They want more privacy and independence, and friends and the online world influence them more and more. Parents should see this as a normal part of growing up, not automatically as rebellion.
Of course, independence must come with limits.
Parents should know their children's friends, understand where they are going and keep appropriate supervision. Clear rules are needed on drugs, violence, dangerous driving, exploitation, cyberbullying and other serious risks but not every disagreement should turn into a confrontation.
A teenager's hairstyle, clothing, music or harmless friendship may not deserve the same parental intervention as behaviour that threatens safety or wellbeing. Parents should tell the difference between a difference in preference and a real danger.
Malaysia's exam-oriented culture poses another challenge. Parents naturally want their children to do well academically, but exam results should not become the only measure of success.
A child also needs resilience, empathy, creativity, communication skills, ethical judgement and the ability to solve problems on their own. Asking only, "What marks did you get?" may miss a more important question: "What did you learn, and how did you handle the difficulty?"
Technology calls for the same balanced approach.
Simply taking away a teenager's phone may offer a quick fix, but it does not necessarily teach responsible digital citizenship. Parents should talk about misinformation, online scams, privacy, cyberbullying, inappropriate content, artificial intelligence and excessive screen use.
The goal should slowly shift from parental supervision to self-discipline.
Parents must also resist the urge to rescue their children from every mistake. Where there is no serious danger, children should sometimes face the consequences of their decisions.
Instead of blaming them right away, parents can ask: "What happened? What could you have done differently? What will you do next time?"
Such conversations help build judgement and responsibility.
Most importantly, parents must realise that children learn more from what they see than from what they hear.
A parent who demands honesty but is dishonest, demands respect while humiliating others, or tells children to control their anger while constantly losing their temper is teaching through behaviour.
In multicultural Malaysia, parents also have a chance to show respect for people of different ethnicities, religions and backgrounds. Tolerance should not just be a lesson taught at school; it should be lived at home.
In the end, Malaysian parents need to give their children both roots and wings.
Roots mean family, values, culture, responsibility and a sense of belonging. Wings mean confidence, curiosity, independent thought and the ability to make responsible choices.
The purpose of parenting, then, is not to produce children who obey their parents forever. It is to raise adults who can tell right from wrong, respect others, take responsibility for their actions and make wise decisions when their parents are no longer beside them.
Good parenting is not about controlling every decision. It is about slowly preparing children to make good decisions for themselves.
K.T.Maran Social Environmental Animal Activist
K.T. Maran (maran.kt@gmail.com) is a content creator under the Newswav Creator programme, where you get to express yourself, be a citizen journalist, and at the same time monetize your content & reach millions of users on Newswav. Log in to creator.newswav.com and become a Newswav Creator now!
The User Content (as defined on Newswav Terms of Use) above including the views expressed and media (pictures, videos, citations etc) were submitted & posted by the author. Newswav is solely an aggregation platform that hosts the User Content. If you have any questions about the content, copyright or other issues of the work, please contact creator@newswav.com.