Many treatises have been written on good parenting but have you ever come across any that talks about how the younger ones should manage their parents? The law of nature always ensures that succeeding generations are “smarter” than the previous ones – this is truer in this age of fast technological development. Does the new generation of today, require any advice about managing their parents?

Parents generally fall into the following groups. Try and recognize the correct slot and you automatically have the most efficient ways of managing them.

Parents having the “when I was your age, I didn’t do it this way” syndrome are the most commonly available parents. Anytime you are confronted with this call their bluff, sit down and ask them how they would have done it. You will be greeted with a thundering silence – probably the situation never existed during their time; even if it did – the solution would appear archaic today and they would soon admit it.

Most parents get worried when their children give them no opportunity to scold. It is like being the headmaster of a school where every student is so obedient that there is no occasion to punish anyone. This leads to the “bottling up effect” when one fine day the “steam escapes violently” and the child gets a scolding far out of proportion to the gravity of the offence committed. Remember to give your parents regular opportunities to mildly scold you so that they are happy at having parented you well.

Most of the workaholic parents (and especially when both of them work) are perennially guilty about not having been able to contribute to the growth of their children. When they meet fellow parents or hear speeches about how quality time needs to be spent with children in order to add value to their personality, this burden of guilt gets magnified. They compensate this guilt by loading their children with expensive gifts and rewards far in excess of what the child deserves, as if money is a universal solution of all maladies.

Almost all parents feel that their children don’t listen to them. It is said that “by the time you realize that maybe your father was right, you already have a son who thinks, you are completely wrong”. There is really no solution to this dilemma. Parents would do well to give extra weight to their children’s decisions & children should not reject parent’s advice just because it comes from them.

Many parents decide to provide for all reasonable (this is the operative word here) things expected of them – tuition fees, coaching classes, sports equipment, entertainment parties, currently fashionable clothes and gadgets etc to their children and then leave the children to do the hard work to achieve expected results. They teach their children the value of money and futility of lavishness. They are silently supportive, do not impose their unachieved dreams on their children and smilingly exude a “sense of security” whenever the child feels confused and insecure. These, as you will realise, are the hardest set of parents to manage – in fact one can just pray to get parents like this.

All you children out there - just remember - life is like a tape recorder; your children will just play back (or is it pay back?) whatever you do to your parents.

"Mr. Prakash Shesh, the author, has done his MBA from Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad after his Masters in Physics from I.I.T. New Delhi. You may send your feedback to him by choosing an option at the top right corner of this page." He can be reached at creative_ngp@sancharnet.in