My young son loves to ask about 500 questions in a single day, on an average, give or take a few (for the ‘Why’ of it, read more here). While I do my best to give him reasonable answers as much as I can, there are times when impatience takes over and I shush him up. Also, there are other times when he asks about things which I feel he doesn’t need to know too much about. Here are three of those ‘parent things’ which are best left to parents alone without their kids being in the know.
Quarrels, Squabbles, Arguments
My husband and I had decided on this back when I got pregnant for the first time with my daughter. Misunderstandings – minor and major, do tend to crop up every now and then between us (like they do in any healthy relationship); sometimes we get over them in a couple of minutes and at other times it may take hours. What we decided back then holds true till date – our arguments are ours alone and our kid(s) will never be a part of it, come what may. However, the kids obviously do realize at such times that all is not well between their mommy and daddy but that’s about it. We never bicker about anything in front of them; after all, relationship battles are not supposed to be about kids taking their mommy or daddy’s sides.
Big Expenses, Little Expenses
Parents always want the best for their kids, be it material goods, moral values or anything and everything else under the sun. It is okay once in a while to cater to your kids’ fancies and get her, say, the story book she wants even though it may be a tad too expensive (I did that last week). But it is definitely not acceptable to buy them a tablet merely because they insist on playing their favorite virtual games on their own device instead of borrowing their father’s laptop or smartphone for a short while. Making kids feel loved and cared for has hardly anything to do with too much or too less money. Children should know that money is something to be valued and what it means to live within one’s means but apart from that, it is best if they are kept out of the financial highs and lows you may encounter every now and then.
Fears, Tears, Regrets
Each one of us has days on which everything seems to go wrong or exactly opposite to how we would like things to be. Everything is in a mess, you’re in a bad mood and you just can’t seem to think of or find a way out of the entire jumble. But we need to remember that as parents, our kids always look up to us. They consider their parents to be beings who are always with them to set things right, to get them out of a bad situation, to make sure nothing in their lives goes wrong. Personally speaking, I had exactly the same feeling when I was a kid and looked up to mom and dad who, I thought back then, had superpowers and nothing could go wrong as long as they were with me. It is a very comforting feeling and thus kids need to not hear you voicing your fears or your regrets very often, or you crying over spilt milk. This does not mean you turn them into unfeeling beings, but there’s a very thin line between making them emotionally stable human beings and going overboard at the drop of a hat.
Can you think up of any other things to be added to this list?