By, Nancy Sungyun

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What does it mean to be a good parent?

A good parent is someone who is of course there for his or her children… which means authentically listening while being curious about who they truly are and being available for them when they need us to be.  To be able to fully do those things a parent must be at their best/happiest because, it is very difficult to be there for anyone while at an emotional state lower than that.

If that is the case, what does one do when one is at his or her weakest/unhappiest?  How does one continue to be a good parent if they are not at their best?  It seems to be true that when feeling happy seems out of reach and one’s self esteem is at its lowest, it is not easy being there for another person.  A parent in this situation might neglect their child’s needs and thus be less than a good parent.

Every parent wants to be the best parent they can.  But even the most knowledgable and informed parent can, from time to time, falter in his or her parenthood.

So how do we do it?  How do we get ourselves out of funks and states of low self esteem to get to our happiest so that we can be good parents even during emotionally tough times?

I am proposing that this time is both an opportunity and a gift of being a parent.  In order to be a good parent to our children, we must be at our happiest, to be at our happiest, especially during emotionally challenging periods of our lives, we have to resolve whatever it is that may be causing us that challenge and placing us in an emotional state and making us feel less than our best.  To get out of that state of being unhappy or emotioanlly compromised, we need to take steps to heal the wounds; we must take positive steps to learn how to take quality care of our own selves.

This in turn makes parenting a catalyst that pushes a parent to become one’s best human and to be in a way the happiest one can be because.  It appears that to be the best parent one can be one has to be as happy as one can be.

          I would like to start this by saying that I do not believe home-schooling is the only way to educate children well or even the best.  I will say that home-schooling worked out very well for my son and me.  But perhaps, the element in our home-schooling that made our educational technology work can be implemented in the more traditional settings to better support the students in their learning environment.

            When the parents who home-school use their creativity as well as their open minds to encourage thoughts that are other than their own, providing diversity of ideas, intellectual and otherwise, it provides a well rounded intellectual experience and can be a wonderful learning environment for the child since, he or she is learning while receiving the unconditional love that parents can so easily provide.

            Home schooled children may avoid the negative influence of misguided teachers who may discourage a child from being someone that is absolutely perfect due to their own lack of understanding or their awareness level.   I have watched instances of brilliant children, who were deeply misunderstood by their teachers, labeled trouble makers and received mistreatment by most of the faculty(negative perspectives being reinforced by one teacher to another).  These children ended up going through an unpleasant and unhappy educational experience, impacting them powerfully. 

            I know that there are many wonderful teachers in the traditonal educational systems and I want to take time to honour them since they are some of the most important people in our world.  The great teachers.  Our culture does not take notice enough of these very special beings even though they powerfully impact the young minds of our future… our future!

             One of the reasons whyI home schooled my son was perhaps due to my exposure to a few bad situations.  Another reason why I kept my son away from the traditional educational environment was that I wanted to preserve and protect my son’s brilliance, his creative instincts and his strong sense of self.  I think if done right, a traditional school environment can do the same thing.