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On A Mission To Find A Child’s Unique Difference

May 23rd, 2008

By Marsha Maung

“I hate the piano, it’s not what I want to do but she keeps forcing it on me and making me do something that I don’t like”, wailed a frustrated teenager about her mother forcing her to practice her piano. She laments this in front of me, but says nothing to her mother. Her own mother harbored dreams of playing the piano, like me, but never got the chance to, like me. While I would not impose piano-playing on my kids if they told me that they hated it, this mother did the opposite.

This defeats the very purpose of our roles as mothers, in my personal opinion. Forget about all that talk about ‘positive parenting’ and stuff like that. Let’s look at this situation in a positive way – every one is different, we’ve established that; which means that our kids possibly possesses different sets of positives and negatives from us. Logically, this means that whatever that we liked as kids, may not appeal to our kids.

Our role as a mother or as a parent is help find the talents that our kids has been given. Every one, I believe have been given good points and as a mother, it’s my job to find that and nurture that. My dad pointed out to my brother once that he would have loved to be a national badminton player and it made him immensely proud of the fact that my brother was really good at it. So, in short, it would be good if our kids shared our passion and life mission, but it should not be the way we parent them. To the point, we should have harbor thoughts of making our own dreams theirs.

Along the journey of being a mother to two kids, I’m almost always amazed at the fact that how different my two boys are. In fact, they embrace the word ‘unique’ and ‘different’ and ‘individual’. As their mother, I find parenting them sometimes difficult because what works for one may not work for the other.

But that’s beside the point. What’s important is that we treat each of our kids as individuals, which means that they have a different sets of skills. A mother should always try to find their unique difference, the one that sets them apart and make them shine. Once the mother finds that defining skill that she could potential hone, she should spend her time finding ways to hone that skill in an encouraging manner. Of course, tips from the many positive parenting books we can find online these days would come in handy because motherhood is not a clear cut thing.

When we start to focus on each child’s unique talent, we give them the ultimate joy in reveling in doing something that they’re interested in and good at. There’s really no point in trying to force our ambition into their heads if they don’t have it.

Like my father said, ‘It would be good if my kids share my passion, but that is not my life mission’.

Well said, dad. Happy Birthday, pa!

Marsha Maung is a Malaysian-based freelance writer who ghost writes articles, blogs, newsletters and web content for her clients. Marsha's just released her first fiction novel 'Imperfect' http://marshamaung.com/books/imperfect.html - a dramatic short story about the turmultous relationship between a mother and her daughter because of her daughter's deformity. For more info on Marsha, visit her website at http://www.marshamaung.com. Marsha actively and passionately contributes to http://www.contentmagician.com as well.