“DO NOT LET YOUR LITTLE CHILDREN GO OUT OF YOUR SIGHT”

Light of Truth

Dr Sr Josephine Joseph CMC

A Zen story speaks about a young man who once got a thorn on his foot while he went walking outside his village.After getting it removed he vowed for life that ever after he would hop on one leg when he would walk outside the village so as to avoid getting another thorn in that foot. Similar is the consequence of a child who is parented by over protecting parents.

The urge to protect our offspring’s is something ingrained in the brain and is an important survival instinct found throughout nature for most species.We might have come across helicopter parents who keep hovering over their children having a bird’s eye to remove all obstacles from the path of the children should we leave them as free range happy chickens that run around the farm in liberty laying eggs wherever they want to be ruled by the sink-or-swim philosophy, the free range parents let their children run wild in the world on their own to learn lessons of life by making mistakes, taking risks and facing challenges. There are some who entrust their children in care of careless servants without the least apprehension of the dirty language, manners, vulgar tricks, lying, cunning, blasphemy, and obscenity their children might learn from such servants.

Low achievements in schools, low self-esteem, drug taking, obesity, crime, and mental-health problems are blamed as parenting deficit problems. So, help pave the path to your child’s future by striking a balance in your parenting style by remembering the exhortation of St Chavara in the Chavarul “Do not let your little children go out of your sight to play with others. Do not trust careless servants. Often they are the ones who spoil the little ones.”

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