Encourage your kids to bond with other adults – and watch them grow in many more dimensions.
We live in increasingly ‘nuclear’ times, especially in urban India. Joint families – especially the ‘tightly’ joint together families of the past – are now rare. Family sizes too have grown smaller and families have scattered. And so, children today are not likely to have too many relatives – just a couple of aunts and uncles and a few cousins, a couple of grandparents, and those too not necessarily in the same town or city.
Meeting and interacting with them is restricted to a few holidays here and there, if at all. True, today instead of a close network of cousins, kids have friends and classmates. What kids have lost out on, however, in this situation, is the sustained presence of significant, loving, responsible and fun adults other than their parents.
We’ve all had one at least – that favourite aunt or uncle, grandparent or godparent, who loved us quite unconditionally. Who would indulge (not necessarily spoil) us, laugh at our jokes again and again, whose freezer always had ice-cream, who’d tell us about the mysteries of the Universe, come up with solutions to offbeat problems, or listen to some of our complaints about our parents as we grew – and even play mediator at times.
These are the godparents or para-parents of our lives. They’re the ones who’ll generally hang loose with kids without having the weighty duties of ‘being a parent’. In no way do they replace parents, but they play an essential role in the emotional growth of a child. They’re important people in the life of a child’s parents too. They’re the safety-valve when the parenting pressure builds up.
Given that such a person is not ‘available’ quite easily and naturally from within the larger family anymore, parents need to go out of their way to encourage and nurture such relationships.
Why are para-parents important?
They broaden the relationship-base of a child. The child at first knows the adult only in the form of its parent – this interaction is bound up with issues of love, trust, nurture, reward, punishment – hands-on, 24/7, as they say. For a child to learn to know and trust other adults, learn to give and take, it is essential that he interact closely with adults other than his parents.
Children often feel deeply frustrated by the ‘decisions and rulings’ of their parents. The presence of a ‘Third Umpire’ in a child’s life is crucial – it gives him/her a sense of fairness from the adult world. If this Third Umpire supports the parent’s decision in some matter, the child is able to take it better. The Third Umpire is also able to intervene on behalf of the child at times, if the parent is being unnecessarily harsh or unreasonably demanding.
When we punish our children, we tend to not just punish them for their ‘crime’ but to severely criticize and reject their entire personality for a while, in our anger and anxiety to correct their behaviour. The para-parent, at such times, is available to the child as a person who, again, may support the parent in the disciplinary action, but is detached enough from the situation to not reject and shun the child totally. For the child, this is an assurance that he/she is not an utterly bad and unlovable person.
Many parents tend to over-focus on their children, overprotect them and in this way limit their experience of the world, in their anxiety to bring up a perfect child to whom no harm ever comes. The para-parent, in this scenario, is a more relaxed adult figure, with whom the child is safe and yet able to explore; looked after and yet not excessively fussed over.
Who makes a good para-parent?
Any mature, loving human being from the age of 21 to 101, who the child, as well as parent, likes and trusts.
A person who has time and energy to be in the child’s life in a sustained fashion. Continuity and dependability is very important for kids – and a mere Santa Claus who appears once a year bearing gifts is not para-parent material.
A person who does not hold a world-view and lifestyle too dramatically different from those of the parents. This can be too confusing for a child.
And yet, not a person who is a clone of the parent either. A para-parent who’s a little different form the parent has so much more to offer a child, bringing in refreshing new ideas, emotions and experiences. The Para-parent is not just a substitute parent.
One who is not over-eager to ‘mould’ and ‘guide’ children, but one who, by the way he/she chooses to interact with the child, builds respect and affection.
A note of caution: For a healthy bond to form between an adult and a Para-parent, firstly, the parent has to know and believe that this adult in no way displaces the parent or undermines his/her authority. There is no place for jealousy and rivalry between two adults over a child – that would be an emotional disaster, the brunt of which is borne by the child in the form of guilt and emotional confusion.
Parenting is a demanding career – and growing up is hard work too, for kids. Make it a little easier and more interesting by enlisting the aid of a para-parent!