Your Ultimate Guide to Building Parent Friendships

Life no longer remains the same post having a child. Your priorities change and have to be aligned with the needs of the child. This means you may not be able to hang out with your colleagues post work for coffee anymore. Nor can you get out to meet your college buddies for a quick bite in the middle of the day. Especially when you’re the only parent in the group.

The parenting guides from We Positive Parenting, Ahmedabad’s top counselling centre for parents and children, suggest that instead of sitting out and being a loner, parents must get out, make newer connections with other parents and build friendships with them.

Parenting will get challenging with every passing year, but when you have a strong friendship with other parents, it gets easier with the exchange of knowledge, ideas and support from fellow parents. Here’s our ultimate guide to building great parent friendships and how they can benefit you.

New activities for new friends

Now that you have a child, it doesn’t mean you have to get cut out from your old group of friends. Instead, it gives you the opportunity to welcome new and interesting people into your lives, in the form of other parent friends. All you have to do is be open, accepting and active.

The first place where you can find like-minded parents to be friends is the school. Since many schools involve the parents to participate in various activities with their children too, there are chances of you meeting many new people and click with them. Volunteer yourself to participate in various parent-child activities where you get to interact and bond with other parents.

Another great suggestion for a parent bonding cum friendship building activity is to host homework or study sessions for their kids together. This way, not only do you get to exchange ideas on teaching your kid, but you can get their school work done on time too.

You can then take this relationship further by inviting the parents over for fun potluck dinner on weekends, where your kids get to play with each other outside the school environment, while you get to chat with the other parents. Initiate conversation with them without expecting anything. Maybe the other parent is also feeling as nervous as you are. And maybe he/she will be later grateful to you for taking the lead. Be proactive and introduce yourself to other parents at such events.

Continue reading

Indian Parents & Counselling: What Makes It So Difficult?

“Therapy is a western concept; it doesn’t apply to us Indians!”

“You are just inspired by all these American TV shows, you are fine, stop overthinking!”

“You want to go to a brain doctor? Are you mad or what?”

These are some of the most common reactions Indian parents have given every time their children or someone tries to tell them that they need to see a mental health profession. Even before the conversation takes shape, it gets shut down by these statements, and followed by a long lecture on how they never had to rush to therapist every time they were stuck somewhere or felt bad.

The final insult to injury would be them comparing the therapist’s fees with that of a physician and making their point on how it is a very costly affair.

But our counsellors who are experts in couple and family counselling in Ahmedabad at We Positive Parenting believe that it’s NOT OUR PARENTS’ FAULT. There is a massive generational gap between us and our parents and our children too. And with Indian parents, the idea of seeking counselling is a concept that they have only seen in American and English movies and TV shows, and the stigma around it only makes it worse.

So, how do we make Indian parents come to terms with the fact that seeking help is completely okay and that they should further support their children rather that deride them?

What does counselling involve?

First of all, let’s try to understand what counselling means and what processes are involved in it. Counselling is a therapeutic practice which involves talking and working out solutions for the various personal and professional problems, seek clarity on the various challenges you are facing. This, is conducted through multiple sessions by a mental health professional like a psychologist or psychotherapist who help you explore options, increaseself-awareness and develop habits that add to or improve your lifestyle.

What makes it so difficult for the parents to understand?

There are various factors involved here, that have shaped a thought in our parents’ minds about therapy and counselling. The first and foremost being, lack of awareness.

The times when our parents grew up were starkly different times, riddled heavily with problems like patriarchy, inequality, economic turmoil, and of course lack of access to resources to educate themselves about mental health and its importance. Due to these challenges, talking about mental health or caring for it never even featured in their list of priorities.

Continue reading