21st September 1997

Parents as Friends!

Should parents stick to the rules and be your role models? Or would you be more comfortable telling your parents all your secrets? Kshalini Nonis finds out how teens and their parents cope....

Parenthood in the 1990's is undoubtedly not an easy task. What with the development of the media, the proliferation of TV channels and easy access to the Internet, children have information of all kinds within reach. Even if they are restricted at home with parents keeping close tabs on them, all the above mentioned channels provide them with information they require in numerous ways. In such a context, the task of parenting is harder, as modern children are no longer likely to accept their parents' word as law.

Should parents then attempt to enforce discipline or should they be more like friends to their children, giving them the opportunity to discuss virtually anything with them ? The latter, however does not always happen in most Sri Lankan homes where communication is not always a strong point and children are afraid or even shy to discuss problems with their parents. We asked some families for their views....

The Salgados, Lasantha and Shama have four daughters ranging from 8-17 years. According to Shama Salgado, children today cannot really be sheltered as they are well informed and know all the latest happenings. "It is important that they are treated as equals and that there is communication between the parents and children. There are very few rules in our home but we are firm to some extent. But when it comes to watching television the children select their programmes." Having married relatively young has enabled the Salgados to be open with their kids, Shama said.

The Salgados are fortunate in that their eldest daughter Nashika sets a good example to her sisters. "Actually they call her 'Mother Superior'! "All children should be treated alike, and there should be no favourites despite the differences in their personalities. Our children do many extra-curricular activities and this is important as in a sense it helps to enhance their personalities. Actually I call them the young executives," dad Lasantha said.

A few months before her O/L's their eldest daughter went on a tennis tournament overseas. This is indeed a departure from the norm as most parents would insist that a youngster facing an exam would have his or her nose buried in textbooks. Lankan children live in a very exam oriented society, and do not merely have to compete among their friends to obtain good results. They have to also bear in mind that there are 'competing parents' too. Parental pressure to secure good results at examinations and virtually do no extra-curricular activities is a common scenario in many homes. But at the end of it all does this approach really help the children? Probably not. So the Salgados believed.

Although Lasantha and Shama would like to see their daughters being qualified, in the careers they choose to pursue, here too there are no hard and fast rules. "We will give them all the guidance and encouragement they need, but the final decision is theirs," they said.

Ajith and Kusum Goonewardenas have two teenaged daughters, Minoli and Mithila, and said that they have a very open relationship with the latter. Ajit coaches the St. Thomas College Rowing team and therefore from their very young days the kids were used to boys calling over at their home. According to Ajit this meant that when the girls grew up they learned to treat boys as 'normal people' and not get all excited when they saw good looking young men. 'Of course if they have a crush on an particular guy it is a different story, but we know about it as they discuss everything with us.............. boys, their school work, extra-curricular activities even issues such as pre marital sex, homosexuality etc.

According to the Goonewardena's, in today's society and considering the media via which the kids could get information, sometimes that being distorted, it is essential that they are able to discuss anything with the parents. "There are no rigid rules in our homes, rather trust, dialogue and close relationships with the kids," Kusum said.

Roshan and Manojini Perera have two teenaged children aged 18 and 16 years. "Our son will be sitting for his A/L's next year. " We would like to see our son Suresh, performing well but we do not pressure him or even remotely insist that he obtains excellent results as his cousin did. Being in the Science stream he is keen to do Medicine but this was entirely his decision," they said.

The Perera's are open with their children to a great extent. "They do not discuss everything with us, but most issues especially those that arouse their curiosity. They also come to us for advice when they have problems from time to time," they said.

Their daughter Sharmali tends to be more out going than her brother and not so inclined towards her books at present. The two children are different in their outlook to life, the manner in which they integrate in society but we have no favourites. We just accept them as they are," Manojini said.

Premilal and Gita de Silva who have two daughters aged 18 and 21 said that the situations change along the way, and hence the problems parents have to contend with are different. "We are absolutely open with the two girls and encourage their friends to come home. There is a rule that when Premilal returns home no one talks to him for about half-an hour until he has showered, relaxed etc. and the girls understand this. Another rule we have is that we do not allow them to go for friends parties at five star hotels. This is because it is not everyone who can afford to do this, and if the girls get used to it, in a sense it could become the 'norm'.

The two girls are entirely different to each other and therefore have to be handled differently. "There was however a time when we felt that our younger daughter Ashanthi had in a sense let us down and we restricted her even to the extent of not letting her go to Pizza Hut with some of her friends. After a while when we felt that we could trust her and let her go out with her friends, Ashanthi wrote me a letter saying "It feels great that you trust me. I will never let you down again," said Gita.

The de Silvas said that they do not believe in waiting till their children reach a specific age to do the things they want to but rather go by their maturity. "Our elder daughter is an introvert whereas our younger daughter is the opposite," they said.

So what's the balance? It seems that while parents should learn to respect and treat their children as individuals with their own ambitions and desires, children should also accept the wisdom of their parents greater experience and guidance. A Senior Counsellor at the National Christian Counselling Centre says many parents spend their time earning money for their children's future and in some instances money becomes their God. "But this is not the way it should be. Children are a valuable part of any marriage and the atmosphere at home should be trustworthy and enable the kids to know that the parents are there for them at any time. If this is not there, the children become aggressive, abusive etc."

She added that the teen years can be a trying period as the children are moving from childhood to adulthood. Materialism has also crept in but it is vital that time is sacrificed to be with the family. Sometimes, if the parents have not been able to achieve their goals they try to do this through their children, and it should not be this way.

Although discipline is necessary at this stage there should also be some sort of respect for the children. It is only when the children are treated as trustworthy, worthwhile people that they develop into well balanced individuals, she added.

Thus bringing up children in this era is certainly not an easy task and one that needs a lot of compromising, sacrificing and accepting ones children for whom they really are. They are indeed the most valuable assets that the parents have. They will naturally be the future citizens of the country, and hence it is up to the parents to put them on the correct path and be there for them in good times and in bad.

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