Love and care for your child comes automatically. But it's easy to miss respect. Afterall, the child is tiny, makes so much mess, so dependent on you, hasn't achieved anything yet for you to look up to and respect.

But, respect for the child can make all the difference. My wife and I attended a course on parenting by Manoj Lekhi. Learnt many things but crux of the learning was respect.

 

1. By nature every child is sensitive and self respecting

2. If we don't show respect, we diminish this natural instinct. Our child then needs to perform and prove himself to deserve respect all his life!

3. By showing respect, we trust in our baby's ability to choose, we don't force our agenda. We develop sensitivity to the child's needs.

E.g. The caregiver will know when the baby doesn't want anymore food and will not force.

The parent becomes accepting. Child makes a mess or breaks things, and the parent does not get irritated. Accepts that its the child's way to learn mortar skills and learn how things work.

4. Makes parenting easy. By being more accepting, there is less stress. Less work to do. No more policing and trying to stop the child from doing things. And no need to guide the child either as we are allowing & trusting the child to be self guided.

5. Be a "Yes" parent. U will notice many parents, (maybe including your own) instinctively say no to their kids. They take on the job of a policeman! With respect as a core belief, we need to be creative instead on how to say yes as much as possible.

6. Respect helps the child trust the parent. No more pesky "choo-choo" kids. We have happy kids instead. So child happy and parents happy.

7. Respect creates the space for our child to be more self expressive. Improves parent-child bonding.

8. A child is Bhagwan ka roop... has no Ego. Respect for the child helps to retain this divinity in the child. It fires up the divinity in the parent (out of Satsang with the divine child). Both parents and kids live a far better life!

Love along with Respect, makes parenting joyful and effortless. Do share examples from your life how showing respect to your child makes such a big difference.