Qualifications For Parents

Society continues to demand qualifications for certain positions; education, licenses and examinations are needed, and one of  the most important positions in society is that of a parent, and no special training is necessary. One needs a license to drive a car, but the danger that follows on having children without necessary knowledge is more dangerous.

A  woman specialist in the field writes in the Kyeongyang Magazine about parents need for knowledge in raising children. She mentions the many parents who see the problems that come with  children in their teens; the parents  remember little  of what they experienced, and pass it off as a rite of passage.

There is the axiom: When small the baby cries because of the parents, when the child grows the parents cry because of the child. She gives us some possible reasons for the crying.

1) Did the parents raise the child with their own personal inflexibility?
"When I was a child I did it this way you do it this way."
2) Was the child raised to be praised by others? 
We have  children without a mature personality and lack spontaneity.
3) Was there constant worry for the child?
This makes for a sensitive and highly nervous temperament. 
4) Was the child in all instants under their thumb? 
A child being treated like a 7 year older as a teenager will be irritable.
5) Was everything spoken an admonition?
This make for a child who doesn't know how to converse, and a child who has two faces.

What are some of the steps necessary in the  education of the parents?
1) Some basic knowledge of the stages of growth.
2) Observe the child and know what to do.
3) Knowledge of what to do in certain periods.
We say that a habit acquired at the age of three lasts a lifetime. Great care should be taken during those early years. Teenagers have reached another stage and have to be treated differently.
4) Place of family in the education.
The child is always learning in the way the family members are relating with one another.
5) Prevent problems, and methods of education. 
The child needs to feel secure. Admonitions and nagging is not what is needed, but words that make sense and given positively and gently followed with the example of the parents.

As with the maxim when one plants black beans you get black, when you plant red beans you get red ones. The personality of the child will depend on the attitude of the parents and the way the child was reared. 

Parents have to learn how to be parents, and to work to improve their own moral and spiritual qualities, they have to confer on themselves the qualifications for raising a family.