How much of a role model to our children are we?

How much of a role model to our children are we actually?

I remembered a wonderful story that inspired me to write this text. I will write it the way I remembered it.

One woman from India was desperate because her child was eating sweets in large quantities. She tried in every possible way to show the child that it was not good for him, but she did not succeed. She applied everything she knew, from reward and punishment, through stories and examples, visits to doctors and hospitals, but there were no results.

Since Gandhi was the most influential person at the time, the child felt a certain awe towards him, so she decided to come to him and ask him for help.

After some time Gandhi received her and she excitedly went with the child to him. Gandhi asked what the problem was, and the woman told him every detail. He looked at the boy and said to the lady: “Please come back in 6 months.”

The woman was surprised by his reaction, but still decided to do so. When she reappeared after 6 months, Gandhi received them again and simply asked the boy not to eat so many sweets anymore. The boy promised to obey and left the room. The confused woman asked Gandhi why he didn’t tell him the same thing the previous time, but waited 6 months. Gandhi replied: “Because I was eating sweets 6 months ago. I can’t talk about something I haven’t experienced myself. When a person speaks from his own experience, he penetrates deeply, because it is true.”

From the day he sees this world, a child learns from his environment, and most of all from those who created him, mother and father, using imitation.

Academician Vladeta Jerotic uttered a wonderful sentence about this: “What Jon learned, Jonathan won’t be able to correct.”

It is not uncommon for parents to have their quarrels while the children are still young, thinking that they do not understand what they are doing. However, feeling is more powerful than reason, and children feel everything when it comes to their parents.

Children have a strong innate instinct to feel loved, and in order to feel that way, 3 things need to happen:

Parents need to love themselves – this is primarily about the level of self-confidence and self-esteem. He who does not love himself enough simply does not have enough love for others either.

Parents should love each other – this refers to the decision to live together and commitment to the fact that infatuation should be further developed until it grows into true love. Many couples go from falling in love to a habit of living with someone.

Parents should love the child – this refers to the fact that the word “love” is a verb, and verbs define an action. Talking that we love someone and showing love in deeds are two different things, while many people equate them.

If any of these 3 types of love is not complete, the child will simply feel a void that can greatly affect his life later.

The mother and father are the biological parents of the child, childhood is the parent of a person’s personality.

It is not only adults who need to teach children, but they also need to learn from children. Paolo Coelho described it as follows:

“A child can always teach an adult three things:

To be happy for no reason

To always be busy with something

To know how to demand with all his might that which he desires.”

Somewhere on the way of adults, these lessons are lost.

The text was taken from www.blic.rs