There are no shortcuts to good parenthood. Some parents instinctively play their role right, others learn through their mistakes, still others, never. Much earlier, in the days of the joint family, children grew up surrounded by loving grandparents, doting aunts, plenty of cousins. But, could that alone guarantee a positive growth?

Today, the scenario has changed in many other ways as well. Unlike his occasional 'guest appearance' in earlier times, today's father is an active parent. Actually, he has little choice. Mothers are moving on to careers and, at the very least, part-time jobs with flexible hours. Then there is the added threat of television and-this gets all the more difficult-advertisements that are now being created by marketing geniuses who have worked it out that children are the decision-makers in the family.

So what is the parent to do?

Parenting is best and most effectively performed when treated as a spiritual exercise;  that parents always need to remember that it is God's light that shines through children. They must love their children as gifts from God and try to remember this fact even in the worst to times, especially when the children are passing through their troublesome teens.

It follows then that your role as a parent is that of a guardian only. You do not own your progeny and have no right to mould them in your image. Kahlil Gibran beautifully expresses the same thought in this much-quoted passage from The Prophet:

Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life's longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your 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.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward not tarries with yesterday.  

No matter how eager or ambitious you are in shaping your children's lives, there is a limit to what you can accomplish. Swami Vivekananda, founder of Ramakrishna Mission, uses the analogy of growing a plant to drive home the point:

You cannot make a plant grow in soil unsuited to it. A child teaches itself. But you can help it to go forward in its own way. What you can do is not of the positive nature, but of the negative. You can take away the obstacles, but knowledge comes out of its own nature. Loosen the soil a little, so that it may come out easily. Put a hedge round it; see that it is not killed by anything, and there your work stops. You cannot do anything else. The rest is a manifestation from within its own nature.

To extend this analogy still further, early childhood can be compared to soil that is just prepared for sowing the seed. It is a great opportunity in the life of the child, and an even greater opportunity for the guardian, to sow the seed of knowledge and of righteousness in the heart of the child.

But just how and with what values we choose to influence our children have to be carefully considered.

Most parents  were conscious of their nurturing role and were unanimous on the need to inculcate the right values in children. But their lists of desirable values differed.  that a parent is foremost a parent, not just a friend to one's children. "Proper values should be instilled early in life and children must have a basic respect for their parents. They must be taught that along with the freedoms and choices, they also have duties towards the family and society.

how are values to be imparted? By living them, of course. As an old saying goes: "The best way to teach character is to have it around the house."

Indeed, no matter how much you resist being a role model to your children, you cannot escape it. So why not be one consciously and effectively? Children learn from what you do, not what you say. They are also perceptive enough to gauge how you feel about things, not just from how you act.

The first thing to do in order to be able to educate a child is to educate oneself, to be master of oneself so that one never sets a bad example. 

It is above all through example that education becomes effective. To speak good words and to give wise advice to a child has very little effect if one does not oneself give him an example of what one teaches. Sincerity, honesty, straightforwardness, courage, disinterestedness, unselfishness, patience, endurance, perseverance, peace, calm, self-control are all things that are taught infinitely better by example than by beautiful speeches.

Teach your children to live from the heart, not just from the mind.
• Believe in them and teach them to believe in themselves.
• Be flexible, not rigid-set rules but not too many.
• Listen to your children; you'll be surprised how much they can teach you.
• Make God your partner in bringing them up (after all, he had a role, too, in giving them to you).
• Teach them to be self-confident.
• Teach them to have the courage to follow their dreams.
• Allow them to grow and become what they are meant to be, not what you picture them to be.
• To bring them up right, spend more time on them and less money

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from:web