Friend, Philosopher & Guide

Parents are often heard saying that in today?s chaotic times, they have to take up the role of ?friend, philosopher and guide? to their children.

Parents are often heard saying that in today’s chaotic times, they have to take up the role of ‘friend, philosopher and guide’ to their children. More and more parents have come to join the bandwagon. And in a sense, it has become kind of fashionable to say that.

HT Image

There is nothing wrong in it, till one tries to reach the depth of its dynamics.

The nature of parenting and the nature of being parented have changed over the period of time. Without getting into the ‘coffee-toffee’ debate, we acknowledge, in the heart of our hearts, that bringing up children in today’s time is stressful as in contrast to earlier days. There are many identifiable reasons for the situation to have emerged. Some are extrinsic, environmental and some are intrinsic, internal. We have read and heard a lot about the external factors. These include media exposure, technology development, upward social mobility and so on. These features in our children life and in our own lives have brought about psychological distance as well as imbalance in our relationship with the children.

I say, psychological distance because the connectivity has become more through gadgets. Parents today are better connected to their children but it leaves out the ‘human factor’. These facilities have their limitations. The most serious limitation in that it cannot transmit the non-verbal emotions, so children today are less skilled to recognize the gestalt of their parents behaviour. To understand the gestalt eye contact is a must but which gets sacrificed because of the multi-tasking that we keep doing and our children also are not free from it.