This question relates to parenting at an early age - right from birth:
Do you feel that you must have a vision for your baby? e.g., My baby is intelligent like Einstein/strong like Hanuman?
More specifically, would you feel that it is useful(for you or baby) or does condition the child into set patterns and stiffle their free development?
Those are very good questions.
I strongly believe in the importance of having a vision for OURSELVES. It is immensely powerful and effective. Successful people like Arnold Schwarzenneger use it (along with goal-setting) all the time.
However, when it comes to our kids, even though it’s hard not to have our own personal wishes for them, I think our main role should be to guide them to create THEIR OWN VISION. That’s why I would always encourage them to make their own choices, so that by experiencing the consequences of their own choices, they can learn from it and figure out what vision they want for themselves and how to attain it.
I have to agree with KL, I think we as parents our primary goal is to guide our children to have visions and dreams for themselves and pursue those goals rather than imposing our vision/goals/lost opportunities upon them. I think it is very important from a young age to let them have a limited choice in things to learn that every decision that they make may have consequences and also to give them the confidence to be able to make decisions for themselves. ( I personally can’t think of anything worse than having a 20 year old completely dependant upon you to make all their decisions)
For ourselves a vision is very useful it helps us to attain more for ourselves and push beyond our often self imposed limits, but for our children we should let them choose so they go through life with passion and not feel like they need to fulfill our lost dreams.
This is just my opinion.
I think my point was taken in quite a different direction.
I was thinking of the power of mind and if we can extrapolate the same.
To quote the source of the idea:
Authors Acredolo and Goodwyn in "Baby Minds" write:
The earlier a mother thought her baby would be aware of the world, the more competent the baby grew to be.
Now: suppose as a parent I always thought of my baby that he is strong like Hanuman and treated him so, would he not grow up stronger than most kids/people?
Many a times I felt the power of parents’ thinking can bring out such things.
What do u think?
A rejoinder to my earlier post:
There is a thin line between having a vision and ‘Imposing our wishes’ on kids.
As others pointed, what they want to become must be best left to them.
But we can sure invoke the power of positive thinking to bring in positive values. Isn’ it?
Vision is the first step which every parent must take in order to give direction for their children.It is the first step of the ladder which every parent must take even before they plan their baby.
hmmm I would personally have multiple visions for my baby i’d wish him/her to be excellent in so many fields that it would be too hard to impose anything on them since anything they choose would be fine by me ;D
with regards to visions for our children.
i think that it is our responsibility to sift out and find the vision that would be suitable for our child.
say if your child loves playing soccer. then what the parent can do is tap on that and nurture that by giving your child opportunities in that direction.
we have to find our childs passion and do something about it. if your child shows interest in say an instrument then we can try and do whatever we can to make that happen.
i guess this comes with patience and observation. act when you recognise the passion. otherwise sit tight for a while and wait for LO to give you a hint of her vision.
it wouldnt be wise to choose a vision beforehand as you dont know your childs personality yet. each child is unique and they blossom before us. we have to watch
and then act
I agree with what’s being said here.
Most people opposing early education believe that the parent just want it his own way, and does not allow the child to ‘be a child’ (Gosh how many times did I hear this one)
My vision is to try offering my daughter as many opportunities as i can provide so she has the ability to chose what she wants to do, and does not end up doing something as a second choice because she did not have the ability to do something else.