What is the role of parents in shaping a child’s happiness? What does a child pick up from his parents? Everything. If a parent is negative, the parent is directly feeding the child’s mind, not only with negative thoughts, but also with negative emotions, which become the foundation of the child’s future.
Therefore, parents have to be very careful about the emotions afloat in their lives. Emotion is energy in motion. Emotions are thoughts, feelings, actions — everything comes from emotions. Therefore, if parents have emotions of anger, hate, vengefulness, jealousy, if parents have emotions of fear, worry, stress, anxiety, then this automatically permeates to a child and shapes the child’s future.
We don’t really have to teach a child. The child automatically learns. And therefore, if we want children to learn to be happy or to build happy and positive emotions in their life, then we must become role models. And it is not just about how we act in front of our child. Regardless, the child will sense and pick up our emotions, the reality of our life.
Let us consider the example of a child who grows up with parents who are constantly bickering. The child will automatically develop the same in his life. Such a child will often remain unhappy, disgruntled, negative, because how much ever the mother or father may try to teach the child, more than what the child will learn from being taught, is what the child will pick up from the emotions that fill his home, the world around him, his environment. Therefore, it is up to us, as parents, as to what emotions we fill our homes or lives with. Isn’t it unfortunate that today, men and women are at loggerheads? Sadly, the one who suffers the most is their child. The child is injected with toxic emotions, negative emotions, which we call NEP, Negative Energy Poison. How can the child live with PEP — Positive Energy that has Power? How can the child develop emotions like courage, confidence, faith, enthusiasm, compassion, optimism, forgiveness, when the child sees his parents living in depression, anger, or anguish?
If the parents are fighting with each other, whatever be the reason, whoever be at fault, the child will not understand that. But the child will pick up the emotional exchange between the mother and the father, the tension, the stress, the misery. Therefore, it is advisable, that parents must not let negative emotions appear in front of their child. Children from broken homes or violent homes or homes where parents are divorced all experience trauma, sadness and anger in varying degrees.
Intelligent parents keep their differences, their arguments and fights away from their child’s presence. Sometimes this may be possible, sometimes it may not be possible. Some parents understand that they play such a vital role in shaping their child’s future, their child’s emotions, their child’s happiness that they are willing to suppress some of their personal feelings for the sake of their child’s future. But at times, what can one do? There is no choice and differences between parents become apparent to the child. Then that unhappy marriage or that bad relationship between the parents, unfortunately, becomes a role model, the foundation, the very raw material of the child’s future. Happy couples will have happy children but unfortunately, unhappy couples cannot have anything but unhappy children.
One thing that we often don’t take into account is the magic of Karma. Karma is the law of action and reaction. If a child has good Karma, then despite bad emotions in the parents, the child may flower and blossom in bliss and on the other hand, despite being born to a perfectly happy couple, if the child is carrying negative Karma, then we may find that the child ends up with an unhappy future.
What we can do as parents, is to foster happiness in our child’s presence so that the child can pick up only positivity — love, forgiveness, kindness, brotherhood, companionship. We should not let any negative, toxic emotions reach our child. This is the best we can do.
The author is the Happiness Ambassador, Author, Spiritual Mentor and Philanthropist
