Obviously, the first teachers we have in our
lives in most cases are our parents. They teach us to walk, to speak, and to have
good manners before we reach "the real world." More than even the professional teachers that we have in school, parents
are generally the most involved in the development and education of children.
Almost for sure our parents are the best teachers at the beginning of our
lives, which actually corresponds to the parents' role in nature. Parents are
most committed and involved in teaching their children; they have a kind of
instinct to sacrifice a part of themselves for the betterment of their
children. They love us and have great patience while passing down their
knowledge to us. They wish us a success and thus will not teach us bad things.
And of course, implicit learning occurs when children unconsciously copy some
of their parents' habits and styles of behavior. During the second stage of
child development, adolescence, parents can still be in the best position to
offer advice even though the children might not accept it. In this case,
perhaps the child's friends would be the best teachers. Adolescents are no toriously
rebellious in many cultures and may automatically reject any advice from their
parents. My first marriage for instance, was solely a matter of doing the
opposite when my parents tried to intrude in offering their advice. So in such
matters, parents should be much more flexible and be rather the partners with
their children. So we can see that being a teacher of growing child become more
and more complicated case as the time passes and many parents are simply
not able to meet the increased demands. On the other hand, I would say that
parents are not professional teachers and they tend to be very biased by
their love of their children. So wishing good things and an easy life may
prevent children from maturation. In any case, parents usually can present only
one viewpoint of the world, while good teaching should be based on different
attitudes. Thus, when children go to school and have a great diversity of
teachers, they learn much more than their parents could probably give them.
Furthermore, once our parents get older, they become more conservative and
cannot always be objective in regard to modern trends and fashions. Thus we
need to take their advice with caution during that period. However, some kind
of intuition, which I believe, shared between relatives about what everybody
needs and great love, which exists in families, still makes our parents very
good teachers and advisers at any time. In conclusion, while parents are not
the ideal teachers, and well-rounded children will generally need a great
diversity of teachers in their lives in order to have a more accurate view of
the world, parents are generally the most committed of all teachers and
have the greatest emotional investment in their children and their future.
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