Sigmund Freud, known as the father of Psychology, emphasised that an individual’s personality is almost completely shaped in the first six years. He attributed most mental illnesses and deficiencies to a lack of nurturing or extreme experiences from childhood. Since most children spend most of their time with their parents in the first six years of their lives, it is the impact of parenting that moulds their personalities that they carry for many decades thereafter.
Children cannot have a fulfilled childhood without parental involvement. Even in the 21st century, with all the technological solutions to help parents rear children their personal involvement is always needed. Here are some reasons you can use to argue about the impact of parental involvement on their children’s lives:
- Education
One of the prime differences between failed parenting and successful parenting is the contrast of their children’s education. Parents who do not care much about their children’s education often leave it up to the school or the tutor. They treat their child’s education like office work and delegate it to the ‘expert’. Then they expect ‘objectives’ to be met in terms of academic performance.
Other parents understand that upbringing and education go hand in hand. Children can get information and knowledge from books and school, but they are brought up to use that knowledge well by the parents.
- Responsibility
When parents manage the problems and wishes of their children in a responsible manner, they demonstrate the importance of taking responsibility. Children are hard-wired to imitate everything their parents do. When parents behave responsibly, children do the same. When they act out of character, children follow.
An autobiography Seen and not Heard: The Memoirs Of A Country Child by Jennifer Jane Sherriff highlights this problem by sharing the agonising experience of losing her mother in early childhood. When her father wanted to amend things by remarrying, her challenges grew as she found it even more challenging to cope with a new mother while living in post-war Britain. The result was that Jennifer began to believe that she was responsible for the problems in the family. Often when parents lack responsibility, the burden of blame is taken on by the children, who unknowingly, save their parents’ humiliation, only to realise the truth much later in life.
- Exploring The World
Children are curious by design. The only barrier to them exploring nature is the parents themselves. When parents do not encourage their children to ask questions and seek new experiences, they strangle their children’s curiosity and spirit of inquiry.
Parents are not supposed to be passive observers in their children’s growth, they should actively participate in games and sports their children are playing. Reading books together, watching movies, and making home projects are other ways to help children explore the world. They love to do everything when they are doing it with their parents. Parents often fail to see their importance in their children’s eyes and do not put in enough time for them to create life-long memories.
- Developing Careers
Officially, there is no defined time when careers begin. Children do not really know when their careers will start or have already begun. Even though most parents are oblivious that they shape their children’s careers from the first day they bring them toys to play with.
While parents choose the toys and books that are convenient to buy or affordable, they forget that they are imprinting the clean slates of their children’s minds with a thought or an image that would inspire them to follow a career related to their first belongings. Parents should think and plan before buying any toy, reading material or even types of clothes for their children. Every act of theirs has a significant impact in the future twenty to thirty years down the road.
Parental involvement is inevitable in a child’s life; it is up to the parents to decide how they will give their children the best time of their lives, in the best time of their lives.