It’s Not a Question of Control

To control our children is to fear them.

It has become evident to me that there are actually not that many parents who instinctively try to control their children. However, we start to instil this very early on due to the fear of public shame. The concept of social shame is all too frequent when we believe that our children embarrass us by showing that they have ‘control’ over us as parents. This is difficult to accept. No one really wants to be the centre of attention for the wrong reasons.

So, has your child ever made you feel embarrassed in public?

Remember that parenthood is not a competition, but an emotional development process…for all parties involved. Stop worrying, though, in the majority of cases people don’t care about or even notice what is happening around them, even if a child is involved. Therefore, to worry about what people think about you as a parent places you in an imaginary paranoid world…seriously, it’s not real. Most people generally don’t have the time to bother to even consider you. Just think how many times you have ever judged people due to their ‘noticeable’ children in public? It probably isn’t that many in comparison to how many times it has actually happened around you.

Many parents have it instilled in them through the inner-workings of society to really focus on how they should control their children; hardly ever is the focus on guiding your children; and the term “control”, in regards to parenting, is never viewed as the abusive concept that it truly is. For parents to accept this, it is necessary to step back from years of societal upbringing. We generally become addicted, as most people do, to gaining control or the idea of possession. This is not our fault at all as parents, because society, through a variety of different mediums and outlets, has conditioned the majority of us to believe that for anyone to be ‘out of control’ is to fail in the eyes of the world around us.

However, when it comes to parenthood, I personally always try to lose control. It is the best long-term solution, as long as I combine the lack of control with full responsibility in regard to every aspect of Jack’s life and my relationship with him. Through this simple combination, Jack has started to control himself autonomously. To not let go of control stems from the fear of others, and when that fear revolves around our children, then there is only one conclusion. It produces negative results for everyone involved.

What about you; are feelings of parental judgement irrelevant or damaging to you?

We cannot enhance our children or ourselves if fear overrides every decision. This retards freedom, which is imperative to happiness, and is built through respect, mutuality and emotional accessibility within your child-parent relationship…Your Spirited Essence. A child who is not emotionally active will only end up causing problems for you, him/herself and/or society as a whole. It, of course, takes great patience to instil this ethic, and unfortunately, who as a parent has the time? Do you?

The answer here, though, is incredibly simple, as I cannot afford to not have the time to listen, respect, and enjoy my child. Of course you are busy, as I am, but this does not take a considerable amount of time; in fact, as parents we just have to make sure that we do not fail to listen, respect and enjoy our children at every possible stage. Open your eyes. Open your ears. Open yourself.

As long as you are sincere, calm and honest, then those brief moments of ethical input into your children will be worth way more to their emotional development than any stress-inducing, strained and regimented strategy of control.

Just have control over the fact that you need to lose it.

So, why not try…

…stopping yourself in that moment when you are about to tell your child what to do

and ask them what they want to do. Listen to the answer and show your child that you

are paying attention to their feelings and wishes. Soon you will not have to worry about

control and you will just start to enjoy parenting.