Disclaimer — I am no parenting expert, just putting out my thoughts.

Parenting is hard and for majority of parents it is their first time. So we all know what it is like to do a difficult task with inexperience. Apart from cleaning shit and pee stuff, the part where it really gets difficult is when you are supposed to impart your values to your offspring.

I think when you have kids you get some kind of “Power” you get. Power of releasing a product in the society who might become president or a criminal one day. So with great power comes great responsiblity.

I was lucky to have great parents. Now that I am an adult and kind of on my own when I looked back I realized what were the key great things that every parent should consider. While I am not saying I am very successful individual but I think my parents were very successful parents.

I know there might be great researches out there which might make this post obvious and noob, these are my thoughts and what I learned from my parents. I want to point out some great parenting style that my parents adopted:

1. Creating an Environment of Free Will- What I mean by that is as a kid we barely make decisions, partly because we are too naive at that time and also our parents are sometimes too protective but I think allowing me to make many crucial decisions of my life with their support was the best thing my parents did to me. It has made me more responsible and less-blaming-others human being which I think is great skill to have.
2. Encouraging Honesty — I know it is difficult to explain to a 10-year old what is honesty. But I think the reason kids lie most is because parents scare the shit out of them for small mistakes, which causes the child to lie. I think instead of scolding a child about his/her mistakes parents should try to make sure that he/she admits mistake and learns from them.
3. Not Comparing with Sharmaji’s Child — I hate when any parent compares his/her child with other child(ren). I just don’t understand how comparing will ever help in your child’s development. Please provide some actionable and constructive feedback if you want your child’s development and understand that every child is unique(Yes for the millionth time!).
4. Not Putting in Hostel before Secondary Education — I can’t thank my parents enough for letting me stay with them till my 10th(After that I had no choice) despite living in a village. How will you ever impart your knowledge and values if you put your son/daughter in a hostel at such an early stage? Its like putting a kid in a factory(Sorry but True). You have kids because you want to leave a legacy behind you and putting them in hostels never help.
5. Believing and Trusting Kids — I think parents should be confident that thier offsprings are capable of doing things own their own and not worrying & being paranoid about them all the time.It is very important for a healthy parent-child relationship.
6. Spending Time With Kids — I was lucky to born in prosperous business family. And we always had time for vacations and daily-fun-family-time(like playing sports, watching movies together etc etc). I have good amount of fun memories with my parents which I am really happy about and would cherish them lifelong.
7. Freedom to Try — My parents bought Computer when I was 10 year old doofus and having computer at that time was kind of a big thing. It is safe to say I was introduced with love of my life. But at the same time I attended karate classes, music classes and many other classes, Eventually ended up with marrying computers.

Till then Peace