I’m asking as a dad of two biological kids and one adopted child (though the concept of adoption differs between the West and the Arab world), ranging in age from 13 to 17. I was raised with a traditional Arab boss-subordinate dynamic between parent and child, but with my kids I went the opposite way and tried to cultivate a best-friend, mentor, and guide relationship, while still maintaining my role as an authority figure.
People are defined by the people around them. Make sure they have a good group of friends. Friends they can depend on, friends they learn from and vise versa and most importantly friends with morality that make the right choices in life.
A good parent produces a self-sufficient and well-adjusted adult with compassion and decency.
There are numerous paths to reach that end but the most important thing is to model the right behaviors.
A good parent produces
But an adult person is no product.
The only thing that parents can produce is the little baby.
I get where you’re coming from, however this is too fine a hair to split and does not detract from their original and well written statement.
Emotional openness, vulnerability, and availability to listen in return. Genuine expression of emotion. Then just try to limit forwarding the trauma of previous generations.
The main job of a parent is to produce experiences of safe disappointments for their children.
Show limits, show love. Make an effort to be interested in whatever is interesting to them. And then make a bit more effort in that, yet.
I like that angle about safe disappointments.
A parent who is able to give their children to tools they need to succeed and whose children feel safe to be honest and come to them for support.
I think probably the biggest thing my parents did with me and by siblings, was humble themselves in front of us. They never tried to maintain infallibility or some illusion of omnipotence. I’ve seen some parents try to fight tooth and nail to maintain that well into their kids adulthood, and far beyond the point the kid has come to know better.
If our parents lost their temper, or made a mistake that affected us in some way, they’d apologize. To us. And that goes as far back as I remember. No privately apologizing to themselves because we wouldn’t remember anyway. But to us.
One of my core memories, is an argument I had with my mother, about how I needed her to be kinder with her choice of words sometimes. She was saying that I can’t let every word people say to me affect me like that, to which I made the point that I don’t. That the only reason I was asking, is because she’s my mother. And that what she says goes straight into my heart, and even when I know she doesn’t mean it, I literally can’t stop it.
It took her about ten seconds of silence to process that point, after which she apologized and promised to try.
That’s not to say we were raised the “free range” style. Our parents were strict, but they didn’t try to make their authority out to be absolute on matters where it wasn’t. Instead, we obeyed because of the simple fact that they had wisdom and experience we didn’t. And they in turn openly acknowledged that that didn’t mean that we had zero. As we grew up, they’d go our of their way to let us defer to our own judgements more and more on more and more matters. Mistakes and all.
Be supportive and openminded, even if their interests or choices might be a little unconventional. Establish clear rules and boundaries, but try to give them as much freedom as they can handle. Life with you doesn’t have to be a party 24/7, but make sure they always feel safe and loved. Teach them how to think, not what to think.
the main sources of child abuse stem from the nuclear family, patriarchy and white supremacy. sociologists and anarchists call this intersectional system of domination childism.
as adults we should all start with abolishing parental rights and not treating children like property.
once children have the freedom to choose their parental figures, abuse will go way down.
in other words, we need to apply the lessons from the feminist movement of emancipating women to emancipating children.
it’s no coincidence that in old timey rhetoric women were called children, because being associated with a child means you become a slave to your husband.
child abuse = white supremacy?
Lmfao what?
Be open and curious, don’t make stuff complicated, even if it seems to be complicated to you. Take challenges step by step. Don’t treat people differently for who they are. Show them vulnerability and how to come back from being hurt.
You always teach by example so if you can show them an open mind, they will learn that the world doesn’t generally harm you.
It’s true that life sometimes will, but the only way to live life to its fullest also includes getting hurt and being sad and finding the trust to get back out there anyway to do that thing you need to do.
Honestly. Given how the world goes, the only thing that can make someone a great parent, in my book, is not having kids. Just bringing a baby into this world is putting your wants before your (not yet existing) child’s wellbeing, which is not something greats parents would do.
Every one of your ancestors has faced the same dynamic. Everyone has thought the future looked grim since forever.
If you personally don’t want to be a parent thats fine, but judging every parent for being a parent is a weird take.
lol if you think where we are today is anything like the last 100 years
Hmm.
100 years ago the great war had just ended. 20 million deaths and about the same in severe injuries. You’d probably know the widows of several young men who died.
The great war spread the Spanish flu, one of the deadliest pandemics in history, where between 50 million and 100 million people perished.
The great depression began almost 100 years ago. Like a recession with more supply chain collapse. Even if you could afford clothes you couldnt buy them because the factory that made them couldnt afford to buy cloth.
During this time Nazism took root in Germany and set the scene for the second world war.
I can assure you that people living in this time thought the future looked very bleak.
yea now tell how any of that compares to the wet bulb crisis or ocean deoxygenation
go look up what your climate scientist are saying
we are fucked
Of course we face huge problems at present, but we’re also more capable at implementing solutions than we have ever been.
“we are fucked” is a bleak generalisation that can’t be rebutted. Regardless, my point remains that people have believed that throughout the ages, and have always pointed to current threats as being more existential than those faced in the past.
There’s actually a lot of research into the issue of pessimism about the future. Honestly, it’s really interesting and I would challenge you to take a look - you might actually feel a little better about the state of the world. It’s a well researched topic but this is a good start.
That’s not to diminish the threats we face. Of course we need to take action and avoid complacency, and of course there will be a significant and deleterious impact from climate change, probably even “catastrophic” by some metrics and in some areas. However, I’m confident that as a race we will adapt, survive, and overcome.
already aware, but you are way under stating the problem, time to take action was 50 years ago
nothing we have technology wise is going to scale to what we need and we are cutting back funding not expanding currently in the US
again go read what your climate scientist are saying and watch what billionaires are doing with their money
You’re kinda insufferable. You might want to get that looked at.
But by not having kids you are not a parent at all. Therefore you cannot be a great one.
Adoption exists. If you then followed most comments in this thread you could become a great parent for sure.
Yes. But you never mentioned adoption in your origional comment. If you just added that one should adopt after all that the comment starts making more sense.
But your original one does not include any of that so in that scenario a person has no biological or adopted kids and is thus not a parent.
A good kid. I say that in jest, but it is the one thing that might make you feel like a good parent.
Parenting from a view of a living example, children are quite smart if we tell them something and they see the parent doing the opposite thing, they will disregard what you say. pay attention to what you do near children not what you tell them necessarily.
Children are not stupid like the movies or shows depict.
You put their interest first. Whatever that may be.
though the concept of adoption differs between the West and the Arab world
very curious about that. how does it differ?
In Arab (Muslim) contexts, adoption is treated as a form of legal guardianship (sponsorship). The child must retain their biological father’s surname. They do not automatically receive inheritance rights; adoptive parents must make specific arrangements if they wish to provide for them.
There are also rules regarding mahram and non-mahram relationships (those whom one may or may not marry). Adopted children are considered non-mahram. However, if the adoptive mother breastfeeds the child, a mahram relationship is established.
For example, our adopted son was three months old when we brought him home. My wife breastfed him, which means the women in our family will not need to cover in his presence.
Oh wow that’s really interesting! Thanks for the explanation.
Empathy and availability are great. Listen to them, respect their struggles growing up. I don’t think that necessarily means being strict/authoritative or lenient, for me it means more feeling respected as a person. And a sane, straightforward way to deal with mistakes. Because we all make mistakes. Especially while learning and growing up.
And I’d say shared memories are awesome. Whatever that means for you. Go on a Canoe trip, teach them how to fix their bike, do woodworks, drill a hole into the wall or bake a cake.
