Parenting is getting tougher and tougher day by day, especially in today’s materialistic world. I hope we are able to inculcate a sense of appreciation of the natural world & the meaning of good relationships in our teenagers in this world full of people working hard out to accumulate more and more possessions.  We have lived enough years to understand how important money is in one’s life. We have worked hard to earn it and hence are conscious and understand the value it has in our lives. We try hard to not take it for granted. But aren’t our children getting too much, too fast without earning any of it? Does the question that your children might not understand the value of money or value it more than relationships and friendships ever haunt you?

 Gone are the chubby, very cuddly and can’t do anything without your children. They are growing up fast, actually too fast. For our children, the teenage has already arrived even if their age year still does not end with a teen. They are exposed to so much at such a young age that their childhood seems to have shortened in life. They however don’t seem to mind that at all and are hurrying themselves up to grow up. It’s interesting to watch the transition from babies to teenagers and then the adult stages of our children.

Many of us, parents of teenagers are constantly worrying, fretting and losing it completely all the time when it comes to handling them. It was easy to be a teenager for us but our children seem to be on another planet. We keep complaining that things were simpler earlier and we were better children. We also keep telling our parents that, there were not so many teenage issues and problems when we were young. Every new generation brings with it a generation gap. Teenagers were rebellious even then, and parents were worried sick of them turning out ok in the earlier generations as well.

Yes, our battle is surely tougher and the main culprit is excessive exposure to media and technology. This is something we have to live with and something that we cannot escape. The ever-developing technology and media exposure is desensitizing our children to the real world. But the positive side is that this exposure is also making our children smarter and more effective multi-tasking individuals. Our parenting job can be a little less challenging if we can find a balance. If we try to become a strong parent who is strong enough to say “No” or not give in too much, too many times. We need to keep a close tab so that instead of valuing relationships and becoming good people, the lives of our teenagers do not revolve around trying to accumulate more and more materialistic things. This is where we need to intervene continuously.

The values we teach them or practice at home will shape their futures as they are still young and they love to emulate us. It is hence our job to minimize the importance of possessions and materials gains in our own lives and model the same to our children. Instead let’s spend more time enjoying life, appreciating people and friends, adding more interesting experiences in our lives and doing small deeds of giving back to the less fortunate. Making them see and help those who don’t have enough, is the best way to teach them to value life over money.

We as parents need to work together as peer pressure in the teenage years is the greatest. How we live our lives and what we teach our children has a huge effect on all other children around us.

Let’s all get together and try to do our Parenting Job well.

Original article: https://awesomepoweroflove.com/2011/12/15/lets-do-our-parenting-job-well/