The Art of Parenting
written by Eva Donners, April 2021
Parenting is the art and science of raising, training, rearing and imparting values to a child. On top of that, you need to shower a child with lots of love, compassion, tons of patience and broad understanding. The way you speak matters, your tone of voice is also a big thing. If you are often too soft or too kind even in the worst situations, or even if the child did something wrong, chances are... the child may overpower you. And if you are too strict even in the simplest of things, the child might become bitter or rebellious, impolite and disobedient. Sounds like a no win win situation. All you need to do as a parent is to stay in between. Be sweet yet be strict. But of course, it all depends on the situation where you need to apply being sweet and strict!
I say, there is an art in parenting because every parent has his or her own different creative styles in training a child. Undoubtedly, we cannot deny the fact that there is Science in parenting because we ought to follow some methods or ways and thus parenting involves psychology, sociology, anthropology, nutrition, genetics, etc. The biggest task of all is the art. The art, for it takes time, effort and perseverance wherein we need to guide, to speak, to talk, to act and to learn from every experience. It has been said, "no parent is perfect" and we do not need to be. And yes, no child is perfect, too. Thus, we should not expect them to be.
We live in a digital world where kids can be heavily influenced by the internet or any other environmental factors especially the cyberworld. Thus, we need to make time to nurture our child from home so she or he will be an asset to our society in the future.
Ms. Eva Donners was a school teacher in the Philippines and is currently a vlogger for her YouTube channel 'Dutch Eva'. She's been living in the Netherlands for 15 years now with her Dutch husband and her only child, Jana.