Roles of a Parent & Creating a Legacy for the Future — Part 3

6. Supervisor – – – Parents are supervisors too, who observe kids and help them, only when kid really can’t move forward, not baby feeding. Similarly, like a real supervisor parents have to teach the basics of doing a job; doing the dishes, gardening, doing laundry, solving a problem, group activity etc. And then, supervise kids to make sure they follow some basic steps to finish a task. Always be ready to appreciate any positive creativity coming from kids while finishing a task, apart from your teaching.

Examples

After teaching kid, how to introduce yourself to other friends/people and listen them. You can supervise kids using observation technique to make sure they really use respectful introduction and listening technique; making eye contact while speaking, maintaining a straight and confident posture, warm tone and a smiling and positive facial expression. A human has to learn these techniques, we don’t inherit them through DNA.

Conflict/disagreement/misunderstanding solving is another skill parents can supervise. This skill needs a lot of practice to hone it. Parents must teach this skill to their kid. Conflict/disagreement/misunderstanding can happen at home or school or any place. Kids must have skills to resolve it by respecting dignity of other people as well as maintaining their own integrity. Parents must teach kids to use their brain and words more than using physical force in any disagreements. Imagine, a kid learning to resolve disagreements from an early age would be able to resolve these issues perfectly in their teenage years, when frontal cortex is not fully developed to made judgement. Right choice of word and right approach can resolve any conflict or tense situation. At the same time, parents needs to make themselves expect in this sector to instill the knowledge and skill to their kids.

What are the basics of conflict /disagreement management 1. Be humble in your tone and body language.

2. Listen others before you speak.

3. list down grievances of both sides.

4. Ask to offer any possible solutions.

5. Bring both parties to a conclusion by finding agreements on issues. Follow WIN-WIN technique; where no-one is a loser and each party wins a portion and gets satisfied at the end.

Time management is another skill, which would help kids in every task they would endeavor. We all have 24 hours a day, but we need to manage that 24 hours to include all important activities of learning/fun/social work/skill development/recreation/management etc.

It is advised to make a daily routine with your kids. Ask them what they activity they want to do on Monday, Tuesday and so on. Kids would follow the routine honestly, if, they are are the one deciding about the content in it; it means parents shall give the leadership role to kids. Parents can suggest changes, if they feel so. Making a daily routine would kid understand the importance of time, completion of task within time, allocation of time, improvisation of tasks and finally using the valuable time in productive things in life.

1. Sit together with your kid to prepare the daily routine. You can create it on a big chart or a white board. Always keep the daily routine flexible because something always comes up everyday. 2. Remind kid to check his daily routine to identify the activity he is supposed to do, in case kid forgets.

3. Parents shall also follow their daily routine; wake up time, office time, evening activity etc.

4. Never forget to appreciate your kid for following daily routine and completing their tasks in time.

Use phrases – “May I help you?” “Can I suggest you something?” “How about this way?” “Don’t you think it would look better or give better result, if we do in this way?” “Do you want to try another method?” “I have a suggestion, do you want to hear it?” “It is great, but I have an idea too, Shall I share with you? to suggest an opinion to kids. Never force yourself on them. Supervision means you have a better option than them and it would help them a lot, not wanting them to follow your ideas only.

7. Coach — A coach rigorously guides a player to achieve his/her full potential in a specified skill. Similarly, parents have to play another role of a coach. Every parent is good at something and have some set of skills, which they acquire through a long chain of experiences and mistakes in their life. Some parents are good at handling small businesses, some are good at cooking, some are good at financing, some are good at gardening, some are good at communication skill, some are good at politics, some are good at diplomacy, some are good at leadership skills, some are good at management etc. Parents shall share this knowledge and skill to their kids too. To make a person achieve their full potential, parents have to guide, suggest, let them do mistakes, let them collect experiences and then practice again everyday, till it becomes the first nature of kids.

A proverb – Leader are not born, they are made.

Similarly, experts are being made through rigorous practice, experience collection, mistakes and re-do.

Example –

Imagine a case ——– Parents are good at farming. Parents always go into the farm with their kids, where kids help them to clear weeds, water plants, plant saplings, harvest crops, spray insecticides, transport product to the market to sell, store seeds for next season, prepare land for the upcoming crop season etc. These activities needs a great deal of knowledge, skill, time management and energy. Some skills would be learnt silently by kids, but parents needs to coach their kids, if, they want their kids to be expert in this. Daily coaching would would instill basics of farming in the mind of kids.

In the future, those kids could use basics of farming learnt and add it with modernization of farming, inclusion of new technology, less labor force more use of computers, use of environmentally friendly farming methods etc. to build a new innovative farming revolution. This can only happen, when a strong foundation is being laid by parents at an early age. Kids would stand upon that foundation and explore their creativity and innovative mind to achieve bigger than their own parents.

8. Financial Advisor — We all use money to fulfill our basic needs, wants and necessities. Money is not the ultimate goal of humankind, but a medium and to get access to tools to achieve our goals. Parents could teach their kids to understand the importance of money, savings, managing expenses, investment and use money to fulfill their needs/wants/necessities.

Imagine, if, kids learn the importance of money from an early age, they would come up with a a plan to earn money rather than only asking money from their parents to fulfill their needs. Otherwise, kids would compare money with a piece of paper only. Earning money needs special knowledge and skills and use of that skill. Parents have a big role of teaching basic about financing – what is money? what knowledge and skill set do we need to earn it? Why do we need to save money? how to grow money? why shall we use use money for the benefit of other people too?

How can parents teach financing and be a financial advisor of their kids?

1.Parents can involve their kids in family budging process- how much family is earning? From where the family is earning? what are the monthly expenses of the family How much family is saving each month? Kids would surely suggest some constructive feedback in this process and silently learn to understand the budget structure of the family. Never hide nay monetary secret with your kids. Always share these things with your children.

2. If, parents are running a business, a store or a small shop. Parents could ask their kids to help them in running the business/store from an early age. Kids could help to greet customers, scan the products, collect money from customers, hand over the change money, manage stock, close the store account, do calculations, clean the store; basically everything an adult does at the store/business. This would not only teach the financial part to kids, as well as social part too. Each business demands a set of social skills to run properly; a happy and smiling face, warm welcome, polite tone, confident gesture, provision of informed choice, friendly behavior and understanding problem of customers and option of customization. Along with parents, kids would silently learn these skills and could develop to the perfection and make it their first nature.

3. Open a bank account for your kids. Parents shall open a bank account for kids at an early age. The questions arises, “what kid is going to deposit in that account without a salary?”. Parents could start a pocket money system, where they would pay 5 bucks or 10 bucks each week to their kids as a token of appreciation for their help, their obedience, helping in business, helping in house chores etc. In this way, kids could get a continuous flow of their own earned money, which they can use to buy things they like as well as to save for the future. Parents could take kids to the bank and teach the process of depositing money; filling up the deposit slip, standing in the queue, depositing money at the bank teller counter, receiving a deposit receipt and keeping the receipt safe with themselves. Once, parents teach this process to their kids, they would save their hard earned money for the future. The habit of saving money would protect them from any financial emergency in their future, and they could use their savings to invest to make their money grow. At the same, parents shall teach kids about investing savings in other assets; gold, diamond, land, buying a new house. This would help money grow by investing in assets whose valuation goes higher with time.

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