Sense of Self-Confidence

Some families just throw their children into the sea to teach them how to swim and they leave them alone without any lifeguard or a life-jacket; then they go back to their homes or to their jobs to take care of their daily chores. However, sooner or later they receive the terrible news: “Your child was drowned while trying to swim in the sea.”

Each member of a family wants to trust the other members of his or her family as well as be trusted by all. This also affects that individual’s confidence in himself or herself. Relationship among the members of a family cannot be ideal unless they trust one another. Such a family lacks a serene and secure atmosphere. The format of relationship between the father and the mother, their attitude towards each other and the level of their mutual trust reflect on their children in actual fact.

If parents do not trust their children and if this brings about in their children distrust towards their parents, the children will make an effort to satisfy such unquenched emotions without the intervention or care of the family by finding somebody whom they can “trust”. These personalities may be uncles, aunts, some other close relatives. Frequently, such children may get introduced to the circles of wayward alliance, too.

As parents we should first trust and have confidence in ourselves and in our children, and then stay away from anything which will cause them to shake their confidence in us. Thereafter we should express our confidence in our children with our words and actions whenever we find an opportunity. Our relationship with our children should make them feel that we are always with them whenever they face a difficulty and need our assistance. However, that must not mean that we are always there to solve their problems on their behalf. If we do so, we will socially paralyze our children for a lifetime; they will not be able to improve their problem-solving abilities and as a consequence, their sincere efforts to improve their self-confidence will be impaired.

Life Resembles an Ocean
For me, life is like an ocean: We start our cruise always from a safe and calm cove, and then the broad patch of sea gradually deepens by each leap and stroke. In a while, ruggedness of the waves also increases to a greater extent during our cruise. We should be very strong to be able to stand against those waves and reach to the shore to conclude the cruise. Some complicated struggles wait for us throughout this cruise which starts in a very serene atmosphere. We always would like to have the assistance or support of our families and expect to see them by our side, ready for every sacrifice to solve our all problems in our lifetime once and for all. That’s us; we wish that so, but what about our children? I wonder if we could help them to feel very confident in this journey called “life”.
I know many families who abandoned their children in this great struggle of a lifetime. I know so many shivering children who resemble frail, vulnerable and unaccompanied wet chicks. Witnessing how fearfully they look around themselves wrenches my heart terribly.

Some families just throw their children into the sea to teach them how to swim and they leave them alone without any lifeguard or a life-jacket; then they go back to their homes or to their jobs to take care of their daily chores. However, sooner or later the terrible news reach: “Your child was drowned while trying to swim in the sea.”

The corpses of some of them are thrown ashore by the sea while some of the others are drowned and lost in the merciless waves of the dark sea. As for the families, they keep their eyes which are filled with tears on the horizon, hopeless after all.


On the other hand, possibly some of those children who were thrown into the sea will become incredibly skilful swimmers; however they will never forget those who left them alone in the midst of the merciless waves of a dark, broad sea. As a result, they will not look up to their parents in sincere respect and before long they dissociate themselves from taking care of their parents any longer. Such children may have nerves of steel; nevertheless, they frown at everyone and do not invest trust in anybody. In fact, this conclusion is not out of the blue, for their dearest and nearest ones, their parents, left them high-and-dry and did not watch over them. As a consequence of such reasons, their sentiments of faithfulness and authenticity frequently remain underdeveloped. There might be some exceptions; those children who are saved by others while they were head to head with the substantial threat of being drowned in the sea can be excluded from such a verdict. However, such children’s connections with their families are almost always served or in great disorder.

I also know many other families who are excessively fond of their children. They usually do not allow them to swim in the sea, for they do not invest confidence in them, and in consequence of such over-protective conduct, those children will grow as land-locked beings and will not have any opportunity to improve their veiled abilities. 

Such children spend their early lives at a considerable extent will playing games under the control of their parents. However, when during this cruise time comes for them to take some serious responsibilities and stay against the wild waves of the sea on their own feet without banking on their parents’ assistance; it will be too late for them to learn swimming. As a likely consequence, they will never have self-confidence. They will not wish or dare to jump down from their fathers’ shoulders; they will wish to hold tight to their fathers’ hand. In this case, a father, who is supposed to struggle to protect himself against the merciless waves, will be simultaneously busy with his child. Consequently, both the father and the child will lose their footing and be drowned in the sea. Just as a child cannot save himself, he pulls his father down to the depths of the sea with him.

Would that be like that? Wasn’t there any option for us to continue our cruise safe and sound? Certainly there was and is always a possibility… in preference to leaving the children in the sea alone or to carrying them always on our shoulders. We should take them to the calm and shallow depths of the sea near the coast and so teach them how to swim with strong steady strokes… We should teach them all sorts and styles of swimming including how to swim under heavy tension.

 After instructing them so, we should also give them an opportunity to practice by themselves what we taught them lately. However, at that time we should not leave them alone without any life guard; we should be at a closer distance so that we can swiftly rush for their help whenever they need us… so that, they will be able to merge their abilities with our experience and walk on their own paths in security and well-being.

In this way, our hearts will be tranquil and peaceful; contented after having fulfilled our duties for them as parents… and, that is what really matters.


Courtesy….   The Reflections (PAKTURK Educational Magazine)