Modern Parenting Concept: What Is Really Important?

Life has substantially diverse & different in this modern age due to various reasons. People remain occupied due to their daily life routines, as compared to life in past. Similarly, in this modern age concepts of family orientation and parenting has changed significantly too. Lets share the story of our modern days parenting concept, and focus whether what we are doing is really important and worthwhile, or we are just wasting our precious time on wrongdoings.

Sarah is a working mother of two young children. She works for an IT company, and serves at a senior position. Her office is almost half an hour drive away from her home. She uses high quality, and most modern devices to remain connected with her projects. Her husband is a banker. Both of them are high end earners, but unfortunately they hardly find time for their beautiful children, because both of them return home in late hours in evening, and even after reaching home, they sometimes have to complete tasks as well.

Sarah's husband is usually on travel, due to his job requirement. Therefore, their children keep waiting for their parents to pay attention to their needs. But whenever they reach out to their parents, they are either busy, away or speaking on their mobile phones, or doing work on their laptops. Hence, this makes their children feel lonely, sad, and sometimes neglected by their parents. The family hardly finds any time to sit, enjoy and share together. However, both parents try quite hard to compensate their absence by purchasing expensive clothes, toys and other such things for their children, but fail to fulfill the hallmarks of good parenting.

Since Sarah is quite social, so she has various friends in her neighborhood as well. Aliya is one of those friends from neighbors. Aliya's family seems quite connected with each other, since the mother does a part time job, but prefers to stay at home, and spends time with her young children. Aliya's husband works with Sarah in her company, at a senior position. Sarah sometimes envy Aliya, that how come she remains so happy, without any career, by being just staying at home mother.

One day Sarah approached Aliya's husband in his office, and asked him that how come, they are a happy family and so connected with each other. He told Sarah that although his wife is a doctor, but she prefers to work from home, in order to spend most of her time with her children at this vulnerable age, to pay attention to their developmental needs, and inculcate good moral values into her children to turn them into good human beings. He also told Sarah that they take dinner together every evening, help their children with their school work, and prioritize to spend time with their children.

After listening to his colleague's family story, Sarah decided to change this arrangement for the sake of her children. She requested her boss to give her another home based position, so she could be available at home for her children most of the time. Next, she convinced her husband to minimize his travel and try to spend time with his family. This change has brought lots of extra benefits for them, for example, fresh and healthy food, clean and organized home, happy and healthy children with high achieving grades in school, lot of family engagement and much more.

Love and relationships are most valuable part of our life. If we lose them, we lose everything in life. People are important, not things. Unfortunately, we run after material things to get happiness, but happiness and contentment has no connection with things, it has true and solid connection with our humanity.

Succeed To Be Successful

Success is a relative term. That means success has a different meaning, and concept for each one of us. For instance, for John success means owning a business firm, while for Alex success means owning a large farm at countryside. Hence, both have a different goals to achieve their success, and therefore their action plan, and their steps towards their success will obviously be quite divergent from each other. 

Success refers to achievement, accomplishment, a sense of fulfillment, attainment of one's goal, and subsequently a feeling of satisfaction getting out of it to an extent where one enjoys contentment. 

Why we want success?

Humans have an innate desire for success. We as humans love acknowledgment, attention, encouragement and support to achieve what we want in life. However, success is not everyone's cup of tea, rather it is a precious gift that comes with its own price. 

How to become successful?

Success and being successful are two different sides of the same coin. Although, attaining success and becoming quite successful requires quite a lot of planning, serious & objective oriented efforts over a period of time, devotion, commitment, consistency and perseverance. 

Success is a journey. Person who desires to be successful has to climb steps that would lead him/her to the ultimate pinnacle. 

What successful people do differently?

Successful people although seem similar as far as their physical appearance is concerned. However, the question is what special things they do to become successful in life? What makes them stand out?

Definitely, successful people perform differently, out of the ordinary, diligently, creatively, and of-course intelligently. Successful people believe in performance, and determine their goals in life. They are very clear about what they want to be? Why they want it? What they have to do to achieve their goal? Etc. 

Additionally, successful people are visionary, they possess a drive to succeed, a fire within them that keeps them moving on towards their goal, no matter how hard they need to work. They create short & long term goals for themselves by believing in themselves, that eventually lands them into success zone. 

Successful people always have an inspiration in their life, as their motivational force. These inspirational figures could be their mentors, their gurus, motivators, and leaders around them. These figures might be in their family members, among friends, or among their teachers or anyone else. 

Most importantly, successful people get out of their comfort zone, they believe in themselves, they aspire to inspire, prefer to be leaders instead to be among followers. They manage their time effectively & efficiently, fully utilize their available resources, explore and research their opportunities, try be at their best always. 

Let's take a look at the other side, they do make mistakes, they fail innumerable times, but they never give up. Each mistake teaches them a lesson, they never regret, rather positively keep improving themselves to avoid future errors. They are never scared of making mistakes. 

Can I be successful?

Fortunately, it's a 'YES'. Anyone can be successful in life, provided you have the will to try, and a vision to succeed. A strong determination & commitment to excel, choose intelligently, and remain focused on your goals. 

It does not matter even if you have only one goal. You can create short term or long term goals. Your journey to success can begin anytime in your life. Strive against all odds by approaching gradually but consistently towards your success, that is waiting right there for you. Every step you take is decreasing your distance to achieve it. 

Challenges and opportunities go side by side. Whoever overcomes challenges & exploit the potential opportunities on the way is considered successful personally and professionally. 

SUCCEED TO WIN, SUCCEED TO BE SUCCESSFUL!

Differentiated Teaching and Learning

           

Human race is one of the most distinctive specie on the planet. Among all the other living organisms we as humans are unique in our creation, our qualities, abilities, faces, and various other aspects. Learning is an innate human desire, to succeed consequently. Hence, the question arises that since we are all so distinctively diverse from each other, so how come we learn and taught through a uniform method? Well, the answer is simple NO.

Likewise, we survive and succeed differently from each other too. Learning is closely attached to age factor. At different stages of age, we have different thought processes, hence we should be taught and trained according to our age, mental level, our interests & motivation, and above all our learning profiles.                                                                                     

             Education is not about transfer of knowledge information, rather it is all about personality development with integration of character formation. However, we are short of this feature in our educational systems, particularly teaching methods. Curtailing the quench of learning, the dimension of differentiation among learners must not be overlooked. Targeting a new era of designing differentiated teaching methods is the need of the hour.

     Differentiation is not confined to any particular culture, ethnicity, nor to geographical boundary, rather it is global at its core. Everywhere people are distinctively unique and different from each other, irrespective of their genders. No two women, nor two men could be similar in every respect anywhere in the whole world, they are meant to be extremely different from each other, and its a living reality.

            Undoubtedly, designing a teaching plan that could facilitate and address each student's diversity is close to impossible. However, differentiated model of teaching and learning has been designed and created to fulfill this teaching/learning challenge. Unfortunately, teachers believe in teaching students the way they were taught, feel reluctant to apply new teaching strategies in their classrooms. Therefore, there is a need to change the mindsets of teachers particularly and educational administrators generally to cater the need of differentiated instruction in their teaching and learning programs.                                                                   

            Certainly, there are various useful differentiated teaching models, unique line of activities inside & outside classrooms that could prove extremely beneficial for diverse learners. Fundamentally speaking, the diversity and uniqueness of learners must be kept in mind in each industry, whether corporate, education, construction, aviation or any other. Differentiated teaching and learning methods would profoundly perform as catalyst for change at global level, and social media is one of the most vital ingredient in this journey towards accepting our diversity and uniqueness.

Aspire To Inspire

Aspiration is an intention to direct one’s hopes and ambitions towards a higher level of achievement in life. An aspiration leads us towards becoming an inspiration for all those around us. 

Let’s focus our attention on the difference between aspiration and inspiration. Well, inspiration is mainly about external source, and it refers to an act of making someone to do something, while aspire is a desire or ambition to achieve something, and it is focused towards internal source.

          Aspiring is an intrinsic motivation. All humans possess the innate motivation to perform, to show, getting acknowledged, remembered after they depart from this world. Generally, people aspire about achieving higher goals like acquiring higher education, better jobs or career for themselves, owning a house, a nice car of their choice. However, choices vary from person to person. 

However, there are few unique souls who aspire to be better individuals, serve their fellow human beings, and their society at large. They consistently strive for a better tomorrow, even though they have to participate by conducting voluntary efforts through thick and thin. Sometimes, these aspiring individuals are short of their own resources, but such obstacles never stop them from offering their services, because their aim is to serve, and serve their best no matter what price they have to pay for it. 

Unfortunately, we sometimes ignore such people. Although, they are found in our families, among our friends or relatives, but we never acknowledge their efforts, their courage, and their precious moments. Their selfless efforts usually remain unacknowledged by our community. 

In this era of selfishness, and busy life style, its hard to find trustworthy, honest, and sincere people around us. Hence, it is important that we identify such individuals, organizations, and groups who aspire to inspire all those around them. 

Sometimes, we find such selfless souls at our workplaces, in our teams, in school, and even inside are very homes. Mother is a very good example of such aspiring ones. Mothers are intrinsically motivated to help, assist, mentor and guide her children at all times. Next could be fathers, our teachers and even our grandparents are all those aspiring individuals around us, whom we must get our inspiration from to be better individuals ourselves. 

Aspire to inspire has always been the best part of us. We all need to aspire for something or the other, irrespective of the type of dreams we plan to pursue. However, aspiring to be an inspiration certainly, always require to go an extra mile. 

I aspire to inspire as a teacher, a mentor, a guide and as a motivational speaker for my children, my students, family, friends, colleagues, coworkers, and above all my fellow human beings. 

ASPIRE TO INSPIRE, BEFORE YOU EXPIRE!

 

Parenting and Influencing

Parenting is a skill as well as an art. It may seem easier, but it’s the most difficult assignment/job in the whole world. Unlike animals, human offspring requires many long years of consistent struggle of nurturing, healthy growing environment, constant supervision and much more.

Additionally, parenting is not just about raising a healthy child. Realistically speaking, parenting is all about upbringing of a human being with a healthy body, along with a healthy mind, a person with integrity, a balanced personality with character, who could be beneficial for his/her family and society at large.

This picture of parenting comprises of two main characters, a father and a mother (parents). Both the characters have to act simultaneously in order to get the best results out of this portrait that they are trying to paint as painters of their family. Family means togetherness, sharing ups and down in the journey of life span, mutual understanding, and above all mutual respect for each other’s privacy and space at the same time. 

Unfortunately, families lack determining these vital blind spot moments, although living under same roof. However, family members living at distance from each other can still be together, connect, share, discuss, and spend time together. That’s the reason it is called a FAMILY.

Parenting and influencing are two different sides of the same coin. Influencing is all about role modeling. Generally, parents consider themselves as best care takers, guides, mentors and teachers of their children. Undoubtedly, this is good, but it is certainly not enough.  Influencing requires much more than just being parents.

Let’s flip this side, focus our attention towards our children, and understand what and how children actually think about us as parents. 

At younger age children perceive their parents as their care takers, they depend on their parents even for their trivial problems. By the time children start going to school, they prefer that their parents help them beyond their physical needs. For example, guide them in their homework, preparing for their exams, etc. Little later in life, children want their parents to be their best friends. Being best friend of your children means, by showing your love in these ways, sitting down with them, spending time with them, understanding their viewpoints, facilitating them in their life choices and decisions.

Our children are our future, and they are reflection of their parents. As a parent, we need to reflect upon our attitude towards our children. We need to think about that, are we giving enough time to our children? Or are we just covering up by giving expensive gifts to our children. Are we giving them a listening ear? At the time, when they count on us for guidance, or do we turn our faces away from them, by acknowledging our busy life schedules. All these small gestures count, and make a lot of difference in the life of our children.

Perhaps, we need to address that what we used to expect from our parents, when we were kids. This way it might become quite clear to us, how our parents were like, and how they reacted to our problems as their children etc. 

Having said that, parenting and influencing your children is a matter of commitment, being diligent, at the end of the day. 

Fortune Of Hope

Hope is a charismatic feeling. It gives us a boost in life and provides us an opportunity of stride to keep moving on without being distressed or feeling less fortunate in life. Therefore, being alive and living with a sense of fulfillment is a blessing in itself. 

Keeping ourselves hopeful in all the dreadful moments we come across in life, in the form of losing someone close to our heart, unexpected and stressful situations, adverse circumstances all contribute towards hopelessness. Sustaining a positive mindset throughout life is no joke indeed. However, its achievable. 

Life is a journey that throws challenges and opportunities simultaneously, towards us throughout our life course. However, discovering these challenges, figuring out the hidden opportunities among these challenges, and preparing ourselves to overcome these impediments, requires immense amount of hard work, commitment, patience, perseverance, diligence and our inner strengths. 

Each endeavor towards accomplishment fortify our feeling of hope. Every step we take in our life we need to make various choices. These choices determine our mindsets, attitudes in life, our behavior towards other fellow human beings including their relationships with us etc. Hence, our present and our future depends extensively on the choices we make on daily basis every second, every minute and every hour of our life journey. 
We all have our dreams, desires, goals (short or long term) and possess a hope to achieve these dreams some day or the other. Primarily, what we are unable is to maintain the balance among these challenging and opportunities, the right time for our next move, differentiate the right and wrong time of taking decisions etc. 

No matter what the cause of failure may be, we always have the master key of HOPE in our hands to unlock any door of upcoming opportunity for us. This fortune of hope has all the ingredients to evolve a new positive figure inside all of us. It facilitate us to believe that even the darkest moments always have that silver lining present in it. 

Our failures determine our successes. The winners are not those who run the fastest, but are those who never give up, never stop nor compromise on their dreams. Understanding this reality of life, and our desire to achieve and be at our best wherever we are is certainly in our own hands. 

Be determined to prove not just to the world, but to our own selves, that we are unique, and next to nothing. Be passionate to keep the flame of HOPE burning inside you. This fire within you is your destiny to be at your best every time, and all the time. 

Best Practices

     Life is all about doing good. All the best practices are natural part of our life. We as humans are created to be good, kind, helpful, and worthwhile in our life. However, many of us at times deviate from this natural inclination. 

      Certainly it happens due to circumstance, situations or even incidences that transform our behaviors and attitudes into a different direction. Although, we all keep trying our best to revert back to our own sense of well being every now and then, and fortunately we do get successful in our sincere attempts. 

       Lets shed some light on our best practices just to remind us how good we are, and how better and even best we can be with just little more effort. We can all start our hectic day routine with a smile on our face. You never know how miraculous this smile could be for your loved ones. When your family, friends, and people around you see you happy in the morning they will also get energize, feel comfortable speaking with you, share their feeling with you. 

       Similarly, this same smile at your workplace can even do a larger impact. Your colleagues, your boss and all other staff members will be happy to see you, meet you, greet you and can even become more helpful towards you in a difficult situation. 

       Next best practice can be saying 'THANK YOU' to everyone who does even a small thing for you. Offer your help to everyone whom you can do a little favor to. Guide all those present close to you irrespective of their differences. Show others that you are part of their team, so they could trust you and comfortably discuss their problems with you. This attitude not only develops sense of well being in you, but also brings self-confidence, improved communication skills and much more to your life. 

   

   Life journey goes through changes every now and then, hence it requires from us to be at our best at all times. Certainly, various situations, circumstances in life are not in our control. But we have complete control upon our own selves, so why not give it a try. 

        Best practices are indeed all the good feelings, thinking, gestures, emotions and values we own as a human being in life. We do not perform like machines, nor like robots, because we are sensitive, full of emotions of love, hate, anger, happiness and much more. Therefore, we all need to reflect on our practices whether good or bad to improve and allow the best to enter from the same door from where the bad is trying to intervene. 

        Let us all think again, organize our emotions and feelings to focus on doing at least one best practice every day, hopefully all these best practices will gradually collect in the picky banks of our hearts and become one large whole one day in the form of a successful human being with a long list of best practices in our pockets. 

         The reason is "WE ARE ALL BEST, SO WE ALL DESERVE THE BEST".