Review by The Star

How To Win Your Kids Over

Review by EVELYN LEN

A refreshing look at ways to become a better parent.

BECOMING a parent is easy enough, compared to being a great parent. If the former takes nine months and a painful labour (for the mother, at least), the latter takes a lot more work and over a much longer period, too.

This book claims to be “the straight-talking guide to making it as a parent without losing a warm enduring relationship with your child”. Certainly, it is packed with plenty of practical suggestions on how to be a good parent.

It goes beyond the usual parenting book as it touches on issues such as meeting your basic needs, self-discovery, work options and time management.

The very first thing, writes Jamilah Samian, is to take care of yourself – yes, you, the parent – and make sure that your basic needs (of body, mind and spirit) are met. Only when you are contented and fulfilled can you become a better parent, she says. That is a refreshing viewpoint, considering that nowadays many parents tend to focus so much on their children that they sometimes neglect their own needs.

Our emotional well-being rubs off on our kids, she says, matter-of-factly. Some of the practical ways in which we can meet our basic needs include getting enough sleep, eating well, exercising regularly, praying/meditating regularly, and connecting with nature. Jamilah is the mother of five boys and a girl, and she writes this book from experience. Throughout the book, she shares some of her own experiences with her children.

Before she became a full-time mum, Jamilah worked as a senior staff in a multi-national organisation. She was also once a home-based entrepreneur and an expatriate spouse in the Middle East. Today, she is a freelance writer.

Jamilah advocates self-discovery as a way to becoming a better parent. Discover yourself through personal reflection and talking with people who are close to you and care about you. Self-discovery enables you to learn what you are potentially best at, what makes you feel whole and happiest, and if you are moving in the right direction to reaching that level of happiness.
Self-discovery can also be related to our work-family options as we ponder whether we should work outside the home full-time, stay at home full-time, work part-time or work from home.
We need time for self-discovery, so time-management becomes very important and should be made the No.1 priority in our lives. Jamilah recommends looking for time-savers (as in changing the way we do things so that we save time) and being on guard against time-stealers. One of the things we could do is to be more selective about the things we must do in a day.

Jamilah puts the onus on the parent to set the tone for the parent-child relationship. If the relationship is a distant or rocky one, then the parent – rather than the child – should change first. And it is never too late to improve that relationship, she says.

She also invites us to explore why we treat our children the way we do. And that has to do with our past – how our parents treated us when we were kids. She delves into the issues of self-talk and leaving a legacy behind for our children, one that goes beyond material possessions.

Once we understand why we act the way we do towards our kids, we can then make them feel special like no one else can. An entire chapter is devoted to this topic. That is the core of the book, and covers issues such as creating enthusiasm, building optimism, how to discipline a child, refining the conscience, how we should view our kids, making our child feel valued, expectations, adolescence, sibling rivalry, and favouritism.

I found the sub-section on giftedness quite refreshing, as it helps the parent see that there is more to giftedness than passing exams. Instead of pressuring our kids to do well only in academic pursuits, we should appreciate that all children are different and, therefore, unique and special.

Not all are academically inclined; there are multiple intelligences. Your child may be word smart, number/reasoning smart, picture smart, body smart, music smart, people smart, self smart or nature smart.

Parenting is such a great challenge that we need all the help we can get. Our support network should include our spouse, friends, and the child’s teachers. Jamilah spells out some ways to go about helping our child if he/she is struggling with homework and really can do better.
The challenge grows when the child becomes a teenager. Having raised a few teens herself, Jamilah offers some helpful tips for this turbulent phase, such as respecting the teen’s privacy, being reassuring and encouraging him/her to think beyond himself/herself. And, of course, do not nag.

To make sure that everyone in the family is given the chance to be heard and understood, family meetings are vital. Jamilah gives suggestions on how to conduct them.
At the end of the book, Jamilah touches on the issue of letting go, and how to handle it when your child leaves the nest.

While it may be a sad time for many parents, it need not be devastating. It has to do with how one sees things; Jamilah suggests seeing it as the development of the parent-child relationship to the parent-friend relationship.

Cool Mum Super Dad is an interesting and enriching read. It contains so much information that it cannot be read at one go. It is better to digest the advice in bite sizes, ponder over it and then put it into practice.

The Star Thursday March 22 2007