In this era where new things come every day, today a new term is trending which is called Fafo Parenting. I absolutely do not support this parenting style, as it can have very negative effects on your children. However, I can say one thing that its success ratio is quite high sometimes, but the day it goes wrong, it can bring a big disaster into your life. Every day, being troubled in their lives, parents try new techniques like Fafo. Its full form itself gives us some idea about it as F*** around and find out. It clearly means let the children try by themselves first, and when they fail, they will come to you for help and then you have to help them with soft advice. Now let’s come directly to its cons which make it very negative. Whenever children get into trouble for any small thing, the chances that they will first come to you for help are very low. If they come to you for help for some very small thing, that will not even count. Children absolutely understand that they are small and that helping them is their parents’ duty. In such a situation, when you give them advice about how something works, it will sound like taunts to them. Believe me, if you do things to show over-smartness, you might succeed once or twice, but it will not last forever. In the child’s mind, a feeling will develop that guardians do not help them without being asked. And slowly this can spoil the relationship between the child and the parents. Guardians should take more care of these things. Children understand very well that the one who helps them without any reason is the one worthy of trust, worthy of sharing feelings and talks. However, due to the examples because of which this is trending, I cannot say the technique itself is entirely wrong. But when you connect any new technique with parenting, you have to be very cautious. We should not forget that if something is used regularly, its consumption keeps increasing. It works exactly like a law. And not only the consumption, its marginal utility also keeps decreasing. Just like if parents start trying these things even for very small matters, over time it will speed up and then it will compound. In such a case, the safety limit of the children may be at risk.
Parents think that they will build a connection at the time of help. And they will prove that they are very right. Through such techniques, you may boost your ego, but your parenting image might get damaged. Moreover, children observing such things may slowly stop asking you for help. And obviously, they will look for other options for help. And when they find help before getting frustrated, it’s obvious that they may start trusting others more. While parenting, we just need to keep in mind to take care of our children, whether physically or mentally. And instead of showing strictness toward children, parents should show it toward themselves. You must have often seen that parents who maintain themselves and keep boundaries, their children follow them later in life. That’s why every parent should take care of their children but not with motives. However, in safety advice, you must be strict with your children. You must tell them before their mistake that it will be a completely wrong act if they do it and that such behavior is not accepted in a good society. Now, its level depends on each parent differently. We can include many things in it and also exclude many. Lastly, I would like to tell you that for fun, if sometimes the children are unable to tie their hair, shoe laces, or buttons, you can enjoy a bit by letting them try, but remember this is not a technique that can be given the status of parenting.
Caution – this FAFO technique can definitely harm high sensitivity children’s, use proper advices of professionals practitioners.
If you are thinking that we can try FaFo once in some scenario and then think according to the results what to do next. Then yes, you are absolutely right, if you want to test the results, it’s a very good thing, there’s no harm in it, but remember this should only be tried on very small things and that too within safe limits. Many times parents will see that in some small matters children ask for help and completely leave themselves to you. But sometimes it won’t be like that. When they completely put themselves at ease and give you a chance to solve their problem, you have to help them with a smile on your face. If you hide ego behind that smile, children can see that and it won’t be good for you, it can create cracks in the relationship. You just have to help them at that moment, and you can even tell them that next time they should take your advice before doing something new. And you will help them and solve their problem before it arises. However, I would like to repeat again that this is not a parenting technique. You can try it for the sake of experiencing it on children but not for experimenting. Thank you.
Abhishek Sonkar
Meet Abhishek Sonkar, [B.com, B.Ed., M.Ed.], a child development specialist with years of experience in the field. He has written numerous blog posts on child development and parenting.
