Step 1: Internal and external SWOT
Logical beings as we are, we first thought a lot about what strengths we have as parents and what weaknesses can make our tasks difficult! This was somewhat doable as we both had some experience in handling nieces and nephews.
Step 2: Vision
Next came the big VISION questions to which we were quite stumped actually = what kind of parents do we want to be? what values do we want to instill in our child? So came the next step!
Step 3: Background research
What do we as a species understand about babies, children? What influences their behaviour? How do they learn? How do we balance being permissive and authoritative? How do parents help them become happy, independent, responsible, respectful and creative? What would we have to change about ourselves? We now are learning to be more curious about how our friends and family parent! Nothing helps more than learning from trials and errors (of others of course:), sorry people!) We also asked around for tried and tested tricks and new insights into parenting. So far, we have interesting reads including....
- What to expect: The First Year by Heidi Murkoff (from what to expect when you are expecting fame)
- The Happy Child Guide by Dr. Blaise Ryan, Ashley Olivia Ryan (fascinating approach to parenting different from the convention)
- How to raise an Amazing Child: The Montessori Way by Tim Seldon
- Teach Yourself how to raise Happy Children (yes the same teach yourself for languages!!, similar to the Happy Child)
- Battle Hymn of the Tiger Mother by Amy Chua (this was hilarious, many ideas on what not to do, but also some interesting contrasts between different parenting styles!)
Our purpose in documenting our journey helps us to reflect on what we have learned and also is a humble attempt to involve our family and friends as co-passengers:) Please we may annoy you sometimes, but we also know that you will take all this with a pinch of salt....for Baby Shah!
The Parents to be: Mana & Parth
