Dear readers, hope you are settling well into the New year. It is almost unbelievable that this month is speeding away so fast. May it be a good year for us all. Today’s blogpost is about intentional parenting. Let me give you a little background to my own parenting journey. I have two little ones – a seven year old (soon to be eight year old) boy and a six year old girl. These two children have taught me a lot on my parenting journey.
I know there are various parenting styles and I have been trying to figure out what my parenting style is. To be honest, it is hard for me to fit into a box. This is because I adopt a little bit of each parenting style at different points in time. I could be the helicopter parent today, the next day I am the strict, authoritative parent, and tomorrow I am both the intense and negotiating parent. However, I am always most definitely the high achieving parent daily. This is for obvious reasons. In a world where you have paid a great price in hard work to achieve all you have especially career-wise, yet people second- guess your ability, look down on you, or just plainly believe you are not good enough simply because of your skin color . So you want to make sure that you are not only good at anything but twice as good. Hence, you have no choice but to prepare your child for that same society that is not so benevolent and accepting of your brilliance. Therefore, my advice for any parent of black children is that while you may have a different parenting style, you have to be a high achieving parent in addition to whatever style you have adopted. Create a hybrid style that works for you and child. You have to parent for the world you are sending your child to. That is the intentionality I want you to incorporate into your parenting.
While I know that parenting is not about military precision, as much as possible we want to get it right and do our possible best to raise and nurture good human beings. May we find the best path that works for us in order to nurture human beings that will always make us proud.
“If you raise your children to feel that they can accomplish any goal or task they decide upon, you will have succeeded as a parent and you will have given your children the greatest of all blessings. “– Brian Tracy