A mindfulness based approach to the toughest yet most rewarding job in the world.

Love is an essential part of life. It is an emotional connection which transcends its medium of expression, but the feeling is felt, nonetheless. Without love given in the form of physical contact, a newborn child would die within a couple of days, arguably in a couple of hours. Our parents’ or guardians’ love that we have received throughout our lives has grown deep roots in our hearts and minds, shaping every part of our very identity. The love children receive in their formative years invariably mould and sculpt their future. It can also be argued to give us the very sanity we rely on to make just decisions and life-changing choices. 

Parents undoubtedly love their children immensely. This invisible yet intense force creates an impregnable bond the moment the mother looks into the eyes of her newborn. With every breath, it only intensifies, and the parental figure begins to feel for the child. The children’s wailing fine-tune their focus and, with it, the ability to become aware and respond to the needs of their children. Growing up, we have been told repeatedly that parents only wish for what is good for their children, which leads to an unquenchable thirst for their success. 
Parenting needs no license, no supervision, no regulations, and although helpful, no continued education, but we can agree that parenting is rough and challenging at times; it is considered to be the toughest profession and is like going on an emotional rollercoaster, having very high ups and very low downs, yet our love towards them is unshakeable.

You may believe you are already a successful parent, or perhaps the adventure of parenting is one you wish for in the future, or maybe the topic of parenting intrigues you. In this day and age, there are many dozens of books that map out the ways to become a successful parent and the correct way of parenting, and not to forget the enormously valuable guidance we receive from our own family, relatives and friends. 

However, it is becoming commonplace today to witness couples or single parents who were once so enthusiastic about having children later realise that parenting is synonymous with stress, sleepless nights, and burnout. Attending to their multitudes of needs can soon become physically, mentally, and emotionally exhausting. Each child goes through many stages of development, including the terrible twos, fearsome fours, snarky sixes, and then their most difficult times, their teenage years. All these stages are more work than pleasure. However, we believe that this need not be like this. Parenting will always bring with it its fair share of challenges, which can sometimes be difficult to manage. But what about the joy parenthood is supposed to bring? Is there no way to do what is right for them without sacrificing our mental freedom? If there is, you would be able to enjoy being with your children without the mental stresses and pressures and finally have a good night's rest. This may feel like a fantasy, dream-like, but these smart parenting techniques have been used and have proven to be successful time and time again.

The name we have given these remarkable techniques is Smart parenting. This article aims to show you how to manoeuvre comfortably through your parenting journey with smart parenting techniques. Smart parenting is a complete game changer. This will be a new parenting paradigm where we will focus on ourselves, reflect on our own childhood, the fake duality we are trapped in, cause and effect in the parent-child relationships, and mindful parenting. 
Before we explore the techniques of Smart Parenting and look at ways to look after the child, we must look at a more critical issue. Most parents pay little attention to this as they are too preoccupied with improving their children. We first need to do an introspection and look at ourselves. They say, ‘It is not enough to give the message. You have got to be the message…’. Before we improve our children, we need to change our ideology. The first question we should ask ourselves is:
Am I a ‘happy’ parent?

As parents, we know our happiness depends on our children’s happiness. This is the core desire of all parents. May my child be successful… May they be smart and intelligent… May my children be happy… Every parent wishes the best for their children because their happiness is ours.

Before we find an answer to this question, allow me to bring you another one. What is a parent's happiness? Your happiness for your child is conditioned and depends on their happiness. We can be happy about our kids and show our benevolence to them only if they fulfil our targets. Because we believe children will be pleased if they meet the targets set by us. Parents are martyrs for their children and would do anything for their happiness. The follow-on questions then are, “What is the guarantee that children will follow these targets of their own volition? “How do you measure the happiness you want them to have?” “What do we mean by happiness?” and “How exactly does happiness arise in the mind?” To find answers to these questions, let us look at ourselves introspectively. 

What is happiness?

How can we define happiness? Granted, happiness is an emotion, but how can we define it? Before we look into the definition of happiness, I would like to present a few examples (or thought experiments) of times we feel pleasure.

My Twins

Let's say you have twins. Needless to say, both born on the same day at the same time. We know as parents the amount of pleasure we receive when our children come home from school with outstanding achievements, such as good grades or a medal. We will use this and experiment with our happiness. Let’s take a situation: A very important year-end examination is stressful for both the children and you, who incidentally is not even doing the exam. The twins (A and B) have faced the same exam. They come home with their results. Twin A has achieved 95%, whereas Twin B just 40%. Honestly, which one out of the two twins gives you greater happiness? The first one, indeed.
Now let’s say they take another exam. This time Twin A comes home with 96% (1% more than last), and Twin B with 80% (a massive improvement from last time). This time round, which one of the two gives you greater happiness? Undeniably, this time, Twin B has brought you greater pleasure. 
What does this show us? This example of a thought experiment demonstrates that mere marks, position, or achievement is NOT the source of the happiness felt. Then the question arises. What is the source of happiness? To further investigate the problem, let us take another thought experiment.

Hug Them Tight

In this experiment, we will explore the physical and mental aspects of happiness. Let's take the situation where your child comes home from school on a typical day. Seeing them and hugging them would give both you and the child pleasure. Yet if we consider a different situation in which your child has had a rough day at school and you know he is upset and worried. Now you hug them. We can all agree that the hug in the second situation gives both parent and child a different feeling – a more intense feeling of happiness. As a responsible parent, you would feel happy to see your child safe and cared for. Let us analyse this situation and look at in from two perspectives. The first is the physical aspect. In both circumstances, pleasure and emotion were felt after physical contact – the embrace. We can presume that the physical contact, sensed as heat and pressure, is the same. But if we look at the mind and the mental aspect, we can see a clear difference. We can confidently state that the pleasure felt was entirely produced by the mind and a cognitive process intertwined with the physical embrace. Happiness is, therefore, not out there within the physical embrace. 

The New Brand of Ice cream

As you can distinctively see, happiness doesn’t come from the outside physical world but from a mental process. Yet our mind feels as though the more of the object we have, the more pleasure we feel, and we would become satisfied. Let me suggest another thought experiment to debunk this. You see an advert on T.V. for a new brand of (insert a flavour of your choice) ice cream. You think this ice cream would be good, so you want it. You go to the shop and buy it, or order it online. Now it is time to eat it.

Before you take the first spoon, you already imagine the pleasure you will experience, a preconception based on the T.V. advert. Theoretically, if ice cream is a source of happiness, the more we consume, the more intense the happiness should become. The moment you place the ice cream in your mouth, you feel immense pleasure and satisfaction. Unfortunately, disproving the idea, the second spoon will not give you the same amount of happiness as the first. The pleasure you felt has decreased ever so slightly. This reduction may not even be noticeable until we continue to eat a few more spoons of it. The more we consume, the less pleasure is felt. Assume you have had three cups of it. After having eaten this much in one sitting, we can all agree that even if you were an ice cream lover, the pleasure felt would reduce exponentially. At some point, the very sight of it would make you sick. It would be as if you were to feed your child a bowl of vegetables they did not like. It seems you have been made content with ice cream. But is that true? Do you no longer need ice cream to make you happy?

As you will know, a few days later, your craving for ice cream reemerges, and you want it again. Why do you need another serving if you have already achieved satisfaction? How many tubs of ice cream must you consume to be satisfied? Eating ice cream, therefore, is not the answer to the problem of craving ice cream as it does not solve the problem and it cannot bring pleasure or satisfaction.

Toy Car vs Real Car (Like Father, like Son)

How do these relate to our children? All the above examples are relatable, and some of you may have experienced something like this in real life, but all of them are about the parents’ or the adult’s happiness. How similar is a child’s happiness to that of ours? Emotions are universal; even the simplest being can feel pain and pleasure. The mental processes of a child’s mind work the same as ours but there is little knowledge and experience that feed into the process. Stereotypically, young boys love to play with toy cars. We can observe the same things in their behaviour too. Let’s say that you have gone shopping with your child. He sees a toy car on the shelf of a store and, just like the ice cream, he wants it. They also work for it - first asking, then begging, followed by nagging, and finally crying. Then when you buy it for them, they are happy. The same process we have discussed above has happened here too. 

Now what if the father buys a real car when the child cries for the toy car? Will that make the child happy? No. It doesn’t matter to the child how many real cars his dad buys, what brand they are or how expensive they are. Happiness can only be attained if you buy the item that you want. We can conclude that pleasure can only arise if the person's aim is fulfilled. This doesn’t mean that the toy car will keep our children happy forever. They no longer want toys when they grow older, but now they like real cars. The toy cars don’t change their appearance or their function. Nowadays, you have many technically advanced toy cars that can mimic a real car in many ways, but when the children mature – that is to say, acquire more worldviews, knowledge and experience, they realise the toy car will not bring value to them, especially when they compare themselves with others. This is why people will generally look to buy fast, fancy, branded cars that suit their wants rather than ones that suit their needs. This means the pleasure we seek is subject to change due to our views, experiences, knowledge, and maturity. So, the mechanism of pleasure is the same as our children. The rather queer fact is that pleasure seems to be so close, yet so far. How do we reconcile this?

The Donkey and the Carrot

Hundreds of years ago, before the invention of the car, our ancestors used animals like donkeys to pull carts and wagons. How did they make the donkey move? Either the stick or the carrot. Both are effective techniques to make the donkey move and carry the load. The stick is used to punish the donkey, but the punishment has to be given frequently. The easier option is hanging a carrot just before the donkey. You might think this is a reward, but no, it is actually the promise of reward! The carrot is suspended teasingly close to the donkey’s mouth, but no matter how hard the donkey tries, it is not  able to reach the carrot. It can smell the carrot but cannot eat it. The poor donkey, who has the false view that it can eat the carrot, will keep moving forwards for as long as it has this expectation of reward. We can relate the same thing to pleasure. We will do anything to remove pain and discomfort, like working 7 to 9 and doing household chores. If threatened by punishments, the reward is its prevention. However, this would only work for as long as they are threatened or feel threatened. On the other hand, carrots motivate all people, including children. When the carrot is hung, there is nothing to stop them. This would self-motivate them, like when we want a new car, working 7 to 9 is no longer a hassle, or when we desire a muscular body, lifting heavy weights becomes enjoyable. Children would revise for long hours to receive the temporary happiness of passing their exams. Pleasure seems so close, but yet so far. The feeling of temporary happiness is what motivates us to keep going forward, but true happiness and satisfaction are never achieved.

To summarise the above thought experiments, we can clearly see the characteristics of pleasure: Pleasure is not something external; it is a creation of the mind. Pleasure comes from a mental process. Pleasure is very temporary. Pleasure can only be achieved by reaching one’s own goals and aims. Pleasure seems so close, but yet so far, we can never really achieve it, therefore we are never satisfied. But for as long as the promise of it lingers in front of our eyes we are on our toes always seeking it. We will continue our discussion on how all this then relates to our becoming a smart parent in the following article.