Assertive, Not Aggressive
Assert your guidance as a parent: Do not hurt the future of your child!
Your children try their hardest, and have their own aspirations and hobbies. They want to do what they want to do with their lives. How do you know whether they’ll succeed, when you don’t want to give them control over their whole lives? While reading storybooks to children in Africa, there is a question that I have always asked them:
“What would you want to change at home in order to live a happy and healthy life?”
“I want my father to give me back my life. He sets impossible goals that keep running away from me, and I am the one to blame; not the teachers, not him, nor the school that set impossible standards for me”, responded Desmond, 14. This response, as strange as it may sound coming from a junior, was no surprise to me. It represents the hard, easily ignored reality that many parents are aggressive – not assertive – in voicing their opinion of what is deserving and undeserving for their children. In the end, they mess up the future of their child.
“When I get bad grades, he yells at me. When I get good grades, he tells me to improve” explained 14-year-old Desmond, who now suffers from panic attacks. He believes that he has no life ahead of him. He thinks that nothing is ever good enough, and nothing will ever be good enough. He believes that nothing will ever be enough until he is the best. But he cannot be the best. Actually, nothing, which is “existing”, is the best.
Interestingly, Desmond’s dad brags about the many strokes of the cane he received at school, because his father wanted him to succeed academically as a medical surgeon. Yet, when asked about his father’s dream, he did not actually achieve it. I may argue that had his father exhibited assertiveness and not aggressiveness, he would have achieved his childhood dream of instead becoming a painter. Legend has it that when his father passed on, he started going out with his peers, drinking, sleeping around with women, and ended up dropping out of school.
My humble opinion is that parents should be open, direct, and honest in their communication while valuing, respecting, and listening to their children. As Khalil Gibran said in his book, Prophet, and I will paraphrase:
“Your children are not your children. They are the sons and daughters of life, longing for itself. They come through you, but not from you, and though they are with you, they do not belong to you. You may give them your love, but not your thoughts, for they have their own thoughts. You may house their bodies, but not their souls, for their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow.”
Written by: Uncle Books
