Being a parent is a joy, but it is also a tough job. Along with the pleasures of seeing your child’s first step, listening to her/his first words and being thrilled at her/his growing recognition of parents and family, comes the painstaking procedures of diapering, feeding and dealing with dreadful temper tantrums.

No parent is flawless. Even loving parents sometimes do things that are unlikely of nurturing parenting, like unnecessarily shouting at their children or needlessly slapping them. These actions are usually a result of frustrations that the parents face at work or home. It may also be the result of a lack of the parent’s own relaxation and breathing space. It is usually suppressed anguish that often transforms itself into a subconsciously motivated controlling behavior on part of most parents. The child, who apparently is the weakest, becomes the victim of this suppressed anguish and eventually an external outlet for parents’ inner aggravations.

The need to control the child is driven and justified by a simple phrase, parents often say to themselves and their children such as “I know what is best for my child”. Without doubt, there is no better person to cater to child’s needs than a loving and caring parent, but in problematic situations where parents are confronted with day to day unending frustrations of life, is it fair to equate their own ‘necessitation to control’ (which is either a characteristic of their own personality or a means of venting their frustrations) with their child’s needs?

Parents may show the following signs where they vent off on their children. Also some possible ways are stated as to how a parent is best able to resolve the situation with a tad more patience and forethought:

Shouting
A consistently loud parent may produce an even louder child. Parents who shout and scream habitually to get their children’s compliance may get away with it but that would only be obedience out of fear of parents and not out of respect. Children gradually get conditioned to that tone of voice and will exhibit similar or worse tones in their language as they grow up. In an extremely violent environment at home they might even show signs of negative behavior, speech impairment or may become suppressed and insecure individuals altogether.

SOLUTION:
Use a soft and polite tone with your children. Exercise use of magic words “Please, Thank you, Excuse me, May I etc” in your daily language. Take control of your tone, instead of your child. It is a life long test of patience and will but all is worth it to produce a soft spoken child! (Use a firmer tone at times of setting limits.)

Spanking
Parents usually resort to spanking with the idea that physical coercion is usually the most effective way to instill discipline. The goal of discipline is to teach children self-control. If we think a little clearer we spank children usually because we lose our own control. It then becomes hard to assert that we expect our kids to maintain their self-control and never throw fits and tantrums knowing that we ourselves are guilty of the same.

SOLUTION:
Parents who spank their children consistently need to condition themselves not to raise their hands on their child even if s/he has done something disastrous. If the situation prevails and you see yourself losing control, take a break. Isolate yourself from the situation. Go for a walk. Breathe easily and relax. Give yourself time to think, analyze the situation and take control of your anger but do not hit your child. Remember spanking makes a child stop doing something temporarily, instilling fear rather than discipline. Fear is not only is a negative personality trait but also causes great amount of stress and anxiety. This anxiety may subsequently set off aggressiveness and stubbornness in a child.

Emotional Blackmailing
This is the most deceitful of strategies used by parents. Usually after parents have exhausted their more forceful practices of shouting, yelling and spanking they resort to emotional blackmailing to control their children. As is the case with children, any agreement out of fear or emotional cornering can leave indelible scars on a person’s personality and cause extreme strain. In some cases it has also been observed that the child may even turn rebellious, disrespectful and outright aggressive towards the parents.

SOLUTION:
Children in their early years should be trusted and conditioned to make their own choices in life and learn from their mistakes. Start with simple decisions that do not carry expensive consequences. Give your opinion. Tell them what’s right and wrong but do not impose. Do not say words which would leave them no choice but to comply with your decisions out of love or worse, out of fear. As long as the results do not bear danger allow the child to live and learn from life. Emotionally imposing your decisions on the child may not give her/him the satisfaction and self esteem that s/he needs to have to live with her/his head up.

It is important to realize the value of self-reflection and analysis. We owe it to our children to give us an opportunity to reflect to control ourselves first. Our children can definitely be molded into positive individuals but instead of struggling to make them one, if we invest in ourselves time, effort and knowledge, with endurance, to become positive role models, the frustrations will automatically take a back seat and will not interfere with the way children ought to be brought up, i.e. with love, attention and care rather than threats and emotional blackmail.