Parenting and Childhood Development

by Yenna Yi, M.A.

Parenting and childhood are inseparable. Our being is impacted by family, parents and childhood. We are made of memories and emotions. Laughter and tears of joy fill our flesh and blood when we recollect tingling precious moments we've shared with our family.

I often think of basic values of parenting: why, how, which and so on. As we know, there is no one perfect answer for any particular situation. Every situation is situational. Every moment is as fresh and precious as the very first day of the child's birth. We learn to savor each drop of rain as if we are in the desert. This is a true sense of mindfulness as I understand it.

For parents it is not easy to be mindful every moment. Nor is it easy for the parents to remember at those moments how we have acted or felt. It is often easy to put ourselves out of context. Our own ambition or expectation set certain agendas and some of them have already paved their own wide road. Reflections of our own childhood is an important tool to help us.

Childhood and parenting are inseparable. The child that guides parents guides the child. In that sense it is comforting to know that we are within the universe of the kinship of parenting. The experience of childhood is the basis of the parenting skills, that guides us from within us if we let him/her. One certain level I would like to see in parenting is a triangular relationship among the parents, the inner child (parents' own ghost or/and memories) and the child.

The tenets of parenting may include respect, acceptance, understanding of cognitive, behavioral and emotional developmental stages, physical and emotional support and guidance, and self care among other values dictated by sociopolitical and cultural dimensions of life.

Self care including physical and emotional stress for the parenting figures is of utmost important. We need to learn to set priorities and practice limit setting. As the children grow up in an environment where those values are practiced, children will be impacted by them. We are in full circle where the parents guided by the inner child guide the children.

Yenna Yi, M.A.