As parents we do our best to make our children happy with online parenting classes. If someone asks us what we want for our children we usually say 'I just want them to be happy'. Often, in fact we think it is our job to make them happy. We buy them tasty treats from the supermarket, we buy them the latest gadgets, we play with them when they are bored, we take online parenting classes, we write them notes if they don't do their homework, we give them money if they run out and we drive them around like a taxi service to make sure that they get their fill of out of school activities. We reinforce the notion that we achieve happiness through people and things.
I must admit that I was guilty of all of the above until I took online parenting classes. One day I was at a talk by the principal of my daughter's school and she said that it is not the job of parents to make their children happy. Shock, horror.... You could actually feel the agitation in the room. What did she mean?
She said that it is every parent’s job to take online parenting classes and parent for the future so that the children you have now will grow into responsible adults, who serve. She went on to say that it is only through service to others that humans achieve true happiness. She explained what we all know deep inside and that is that happiness comes from within, from a contentment that we are enough just as we are because we make the world a better place in some way and have rich relationships with other human beings.
She went on to give examples from online parenting classes and explained that each time we do something for our children to make their lives easier or make them happy we are in fact failing to do our jobs properly as parents, as we are parenting for the now, with no consideration of how our actions will impact on our long term goals for our children.
She said that it is important that we give our children the opportunity to suffer and experience pain as this triggers personal growth. In online parenting classes we learn that it causes our children to look at what they have done to cause their situation and to understand that consequences flow from actions. If we as parents constantly protect our children from suffering they will have no ability to weather the storms of life and this will not bode well for their future careers or relationships. They will not have the strength of character to resolve issues and persevere. Perhaps online parenting classes explain the horrendous divorce statistics and the inability of Gen Y to stick at anything for long.
We need to be teaching our children what we learn in online parenting classes, that they are responsible for their own happiness and to achieve it through gratitude for what they already have and by looking for opportunities to use their abilities to improve the lives of those around them.
Tonette Watson