What do you base your parenting style on? Do you try to replicate what your childhood was like for your children? For eg., when you want to do something fun with the kid(s), or when it comes to disciplining them, or even feeding and dietary habits - how do you screen the ideas that are out there? No body is truly objective, we all have our biases, which one’s are your biggest?
I don’t think i’m like my parents were with us, but then again until now “parenting” has been relatively trivial. the choices are only starting to show up.
I think I use a common sense approach combined with what I think worked with us growing up, reading up a bit, looking for examples from parents who've raised kids I like...
my goal is to establish a good balance between being in charge and being a friend. in my 9 years of being a parent I've figured out that the same strategy does not work on every kid. a parent must be creative, must evolve and refresh, but must work with some fundamental values for consistency.
Queer when I wasn't a parent myself there were so many things I didn't want to do but now as parent I would like to incorporate few things that my parents did right and also what my inlaws did right.
Also Niksik is very right our kids do kind of guide us on how to handle them. I just pray that our kids turn out as good muslims and human beings inspite of our mistakes as parents...
Parenting is HARD! I don't think there are any hard and fast rules. Having seen parents raise their children exactly the opposite as to how they were raised in terms of matieral needs and parents whose lives revolve entirely around their children in terms of asking others to make sacrafices for their children, and parents who pay no interest in their childrens lives, no set of children have been 'perfect' nor 'damaged'. I think parents just have to do the best they can. Of course there are obvious dos and donts, but essential, it's all chance. Do what you can and fingers crossed for the best!