Powering Up 2014

Happy New Year to all you lovely people out there!

It’s so easy to get caught up with New Year frenzy of celebrations, countdowns and holidays. Post new year is the time to take stat of your previous year’s ups and downs, to make new goals or what is grandly called New Year Resolutions.

I fared pretty well with few of my last year’s resolutions. My biggest and most important one was to develop self-confidence in my kiddo. Growing up in a foreign country surrounded by completely foreign language and culture is hard for a small girl. It sounds like a very clichéd resolution but I am sure parents in this forum know and appreciate how important this one is. I wanted to increase self-esteem in my kiddo by means of adding some extra curricular achievements into her kitty. I excelled at some of them, failed at a few others. Overall, I (and my kiddo) came out pretty well by the end of the year.

While still keeping resolutions from previous year, here are some additional parenting resolutions for this year.

Pink v/s Blue conundrum

Kiddo’s world has too many rules. She wonders why can’t girls like Lightning McQueen? Why are there only superheroes and almost no super heroines that she can pose as to challenge the boys in her class? Why are there boy’s colour and girl’s colour – why doesn’t her girl friends use Black or Brown? It’s all about fair, well-mannered princess whose point of existence is to find a prince charming.

I hope my kiddo finds enough role models this year to answer her confusions. I want to instill in her that she can do anything that she wants even being a girl. I guess this is a resolution that is going to run for a few years from now.

Love and kindness for animals

I wish to cultivate a passion for animals in my kiddo.  The first thing that I have done is to not scare her with false threats or use animals as scarecrows. She readily pets dogs and cats (and rabbits and hamsters and tortoises) wherever she finds them. I hope to expose her to more exotic breeds either at zoo or out in nature parks. I want her to understand that all living creatures on this planet, small or big, have a right to live and that we should live in harmony with them.

Peer pressure

Nothing is more important to a five-year old than how she is perceived by her friends. Hers is the age where friends start becoming more important. These friends can make or break kiddo’s self-esteem. I hope I can keep an eye on her friends and their interaction. I intend to gently lead this peer influence as a healthy developmental stepping-stone. I should provide a loving environment, a safety blanket for her to come back to and unwind. This is also the time for her to be independent with her friends, which means she must be able to decide what is right and what is wrong. This to me is scary!

I am sure my parenting resolutions increase and gets even more complex in coming years. That calls for one more resolution – to keep up with all of them!

Here is to a new year, wishing you a happy new year again!