My child is well behaved and obdedient..Why is that not enough?

Many a times, we, as parents consider an obedient child and well behaved child as one who is going to do well later in life. On the other hand, a child who asks the ‘why’ question to parents or does not seem to obey instructions might seem to be ill behaved. It might not be so.

An obedient child might exhibit behaviours like doing what parents tell to do, follow instructions, keeping things in place. However, the parents need to ask themselves the question, ‘Am I making my child ready to face the world on his or her own.’ That question if asked in earnest will lead to a volley of questions the answers to which will lead to the desired behavioural development of the child.

Behavioural development of a child encompasses the aspects of identifying the areas of interest and engaging the child in making efforts towards achievements – big or small. This is where it starts getting challenging, as with time the child’s interests keep evolving and a child needs to explore sufficiently before narrowing upon the two things to focus on.

Consider the case of Rahul (name changed to maintain confidentiality). He was considered as a very disruptive child. Sitting at one place seemed to be impossible for him. Breaking rules, picking up fights and running long distance with the dog in tow seemed to be what people would recollect him doing often. Cycling at maximum possible speed in the crowded city streets and zipping between cars and making a quick turn without any signal was fun to him and nightmare to his parents.

As he participated in the marathons and the long distance cycling races, parents always wondered where does he get all the energy from. Well he was a case of a bundle of energy not knowing how to channelize it.

After sometime parents discussed this with a friend and voiced their fears about the child. The friend laughed at it and said that he understands very well what Rahul needs – a high strength exposure that stresses him and channelizes his energy in the right direction.

A few calls were made and Rahul was enrolled into a course for becoming a mountaineer. Two months every year he would go for the training and then climb a peak. The last when we talked to Rahul, he said that he was preparing to Summit on the Everest and the experienced guides had given him a three year long schedule to prepare for it. The high energy was channelized to a very structured way of working giving rise to determination and accomplishment.

And when asked why did he not zip through the traffic again or take the turns without signalling, he said that there are much better things to do and one must keep extremely fit and healthy to take those on.

In their desire to get the child to exhibit behaviours that demonstrate obedience, very often the parents force-fit the child in a mould by rewarding those behaviours that they want to get exhibited. Parents need to evolve their thought processes and work hard to develop the behaviours of their child. These might require them to be open to intense discussions to understand what really interests the child or why is there a difference in the boundaries being drawn by them and the child.

At Yancha, expert guides provide the much needed inputs to parents to carry out the behavioural development of the children. While schools focus on the academic development based on prescribed curriculum, behavioural development and building on the areas of interest of the child is best carried out by the parents.

The fundamental reason for children to achieve far beyond expectations is the behavioural development carried out by the parents in the formative years of their development.

The Ted Talk by Helen Pearson from the longest study on human development also highlights that parenting matters and it is the critical differentiator between children who do well later in life and those who are found struggling -

https://www.ted.com/talks/helen_pearson_lessons_from_the_longest_study_on_human_development?language=en