EYE-OPENER - Family culture for growth !

Opportunities Today : December 2005 Issue

EYE-OPENER - Family culture for growth !

 

“Child is the father of the man” Well said ! But what is the greater message behind this? Child is the future man. He grows up in his family. So that's where a child shapes himself for his future. What ever good a child imbibes is through the family beliefs, practices and norms.

In a family where parents are well organized, systematic and performance oriented, a child too has the same grooming. These family traits he follows in school too even though he may meet children coming from different families with diverse backgrounds. How strong are the family bonds, will strengthen a child towards his own grooming, convictions and performance practices. His attitude and approach is a gift of his family. It is in him to further renew his strengths of family bonds.

Important point to remember is in case of weaker family bonds, outside influences work stronger on a child's mind. He gets confused and being vulnerable succumbs to conveniences forgetting convictions which are weak due to weak bonds. So much so that he becomes a hybrid personality with mixed and unfixed or unsettled ideas about work culture, friendship, sense of right and wrong and even the power of self decision is low.

What exactly are the family bonds that are so helpful to serve as a support to a child in his right thinking? Family bonds are built through togetherness - spending time together whether for praying, eating, or even just sitting together and chatting. All this gives a child a sense of being anchored to his family as well as family traditions, culture and beliefs. Thus he grows to be a person with his own logic, for thinking and deciding the guidelines come from the family culture.

Today's nuclear family system has deprived the children getting from wisdom of senior members of family like grand parents. Even the parents can play a great role. All they need is time to devote for “bonding”. But the sad situation is that the present generation parents are over-occupied in “their” activities of personal pleasures, own friends and pursuits of money for flaunting elite style. The servants or crèches have substituted parents. Therefore the growth of a child is in the midst of very “low” or “limited” culture servants in place of their own parents. In case of rich families the situation is worse the child is thrown in a “luxury” boarding school, may be with an international tag.

The child too imbibes the same “self-oriented” attitude of parents with low cultural grooming and along with that he is exposed to mixed mischief culture of “little devils” from various backgrounds. The “TV” cartoons and shows thus complete the damage. With such state of affairs things are going to slide to the “worst”. It is therefore timely to sound warning bells to new parents that for the future generation to be loving and talented not greedy and selfish, the family culture has to be restored, reinvented to make the next generation grow with right emotions and values unlike the current generation which is already halfway on its spoiling spree and degeneration.