Parenting presence !

 

I normally look at flowers to get the front view. Only in the recent years, I also take time to look behind the flowers. 

It is when we look behind the flowers, we get to see how a flower is held firm by its stem. 

A child is rooted in his or her family and is held by his her parents in an embrace of love. 

This embrace of love is expressed in different ways on a day-today basis. Only when, from infancy a child can feel this proximity with parents physically and emotionally, there is a prospect of a child blossoming in the childhood years. 

The parenting presence is an experience parents can offer to children from infancy for them to grow up with a sene of nearness to parents and belonging to the family.

It is necessary to avoid any form interruption to this process. 

The reading times, play times, meal times, bed times, walks and outings, creative activities, sibling times, neighbourhood times and social times are the usual ways which parents can use to give this attachment process essential for the emotional security of children in the preschool years. 

I remember a family with their two pre-school children tell me once, that 'their time is for their children'! I felt moved by that statement. To be able to consider that parent's time is for children is a true mark of parenting instinct and calling!

M.C.Mathew(text and photo)