I see how curious my daughter has become since she is 6 months old. She looks at everything that breaks a pattern. I wish I had the power of Aquaman; the ability to read her mind. She loves engaging with people and gives a smile to everyone at near proximity. I guess that by being a new dad and studying my daughter I can see how early in life people want to engage. I observe her especially when she sees herself in the mirror and is trying to reach out to touch her reflection.
Most of our time is spent trying to engage with others. We meet many people where we either connect or don’t connect. With the today’s social platforms, everyone wants more friends and a larger network, but as adults are we evaluating who we have around ourselves and family? Are we making sure we have quality people over the quantity of people?
As a kid, I use to always mix myself in with a different crowds. I have never tried to make anyone happy just to have them around me, I guess it is not in my nature. Even though I had a high probability of rejecting people who I thought could harm me, I still ended up with a good share of bad relationships. With the help of certain individuals who had the foresight to pick out the bad apples, their advice was an integral part of filtering out the toxic relationships.
How do you guide your children into creating healthy relationships?
I guess children learn what their parents teach them. How is it that sometimes adults have issues picking the people around them and children have better radar when choosing relationships.
The internet brings new opportunities and threats into parent’s busy lives. There is very little advice that we can get from our parents and grandparents because they did not have to deal with the interconnected world.
It is even more important to set those rules of using the internet and guide our children in learning the meaning of relationships online and offline as early as possible. There is a communal effort that has to occur between parents today. Even the Papaheroes don’t have the capability that Professor Xavier from X-Men has of reading people’s mind or the intentions they have whether online or offline.
What new issues do you think have appeared in this new world that our parents and grandparents did not have to deal with in regards to relationships?
How do you deal with them?
photo credit by bradley j