There are times when the decisions you take as parents are not easy. Especially for me, as I live mostly in grey area - less of black and white.My childhood was different from my children- I know every parents is and that's why they call it the generation gap, but here its more of cultural gap too. Education system was different, (though I have to admit - I hated it), there was tremendous pressure to succeed academically (which again was hated) and the list goes on.
My problem is how do I strike the fine balance ? I didn't like the pressure of excelling growing up, so there are days when I will just let my son decide when he wants to study. Let him take the lead. This goes on for a couple of weeks, and then the biggest evil of all "guilt" points its finger at me - saying I am a bad parent. So, here I am now pushing my son to work harder, to set the goals higher.
And so the yo-yo continues and I end up feeling like a failure as a parent. I remember when I was a teen and my mother used to goad me to excel or aim higher, I was always like "No - I don't care". She told me at that time " When you grow older and see others doing better than you, you are going to blame me for not pushing you harder", which was of course dismissed by me without a second thought. Yet here I am now, 20 years later, blaming my parents for not being ambitious enough for me and not wanting to repeat the same "mistake" with my kids.
So here is my question to all the parents out there - how do you know that you are pushing your kid just enough?
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