Effective Parenting Series #5 - Let your children choose their ambitions in their lives

Parents usually encourage their children to dream. But when realty comes in order to choose their career path once they graduated in high school, meddling episodes will follow.

Let's have a dramatization.

"Mom, I don't want to be a lawyer, " said John.

"Your father is a lawyer. Who will inherit his position, if you don't want to pursue law in college?" asked by her mom.

"But I want to study music!"

"Fine! But you must follow my suggestion first, before you can pursue your ambition." as concluded by her mother.

Maybe, that's the reason why there are many singing lawyers in my country. Yes, that fact is true. No pun intended.

I,for one, also wanted to pursue a career in music. But my father didn't want his children to pursue his chosen field as the bass guitarist in their family band or combo (the term I used to have an awe when I was young).

Instead, my parents wanted me to be a doctor or priest. But I also wanted to be an architect, since I'm good in drawings. I tried finding a set of foster parents that will finance my priesthood but to no avail, I can't find any during that time.

I've studied technical courses and settled into a job on communication, starting as talent, beat reporter and ended up as a program host.

In the end, my parents allowed me to choose my career path, since they cannot support me in my ambition nor they can provide enough money to help me in my studies.

If not for the scholarships that I've received, I can never finish a college course that ended me up working as a seafarer on board commercial ships these days.

Parents can be categorized into a domineering, practical or undecided ones.

Domineering parents are those who can afford to send their children to college with the use of their money. They want their children to have a career like what they have.

Practical parents are those who will support their children as long as it can ensure for a good future and land them a profitable job in the future.

Undecided parents are capable of throwing the responsibility to their children as to what kind of career will they be trekking during their college education.

Other types? As parents, you know where you belong.

Note: If you haven't read my previous installments regarding Effective Parenting, you can still review those hubs for reference.

My purpose of this series is to make a channel among readers and online users to share their thoughts about Effective Parenting.

Let me start what I've learned about a very famous Lebanese-American poet, in the person of Kahlil (Khalil) Gibran ( January 6, 1883 – April 10, 1931).(He is third on the list of famous poets, including William Shakespeare and Lao-Tzu.)

His parents emigrated to USA from Lebanon during his young age. In Lebanon, especially in his place, Bsharri, he is still revered as the famous poet this modern world has ever seen.

No doubt, his English book, The Prophet, published in 1923, is a source of inspirational quotes and essays that were written in poems.

Gibran tackled a lot of issues, especially Parenting. This is part of his narratives:

Your children are not your children.

They come through you, but not from you.

And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.

You may give them love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls.

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow;

Which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

He is very realistic about parenting.

Even if parents can insist their wants for their children, still something unique will burst out from the confines of their personalities.

To pursue their ambitions.

To become individuals.