The Parents’ club at the WAC Discussion club continued a series of meetings with experts in the field of parenting. The guest of the meeting on February 8 was the coach Astanda Sadzba, and the topic was the education of leaders.

Said Bargandzhia

The coach and the teacher of the Abkhaz State University, Astanda Sazdba, spoke about how to instill leadership qualities in a child at the meeting of the WAC Parents’ club.

Coaching is a consulting and training method in which a specially trained person (coach) helps another person achieve a specific life or professional goal.  At the same time, the coach does not offer his ward any ready-made ways to solve the problem: a person must, through analysis and his own creative search, find a solution himself.  Sadzba began to study this technique about ten years ago.  However, by her admission, she was guided much earlier by the same principles that underlie coaching, when she was raising her own children.

A full video version of the club meeting is available on the YouTube channel of the WAC >>

“I gave birth to my first child at the age of 21, and already then I knew how I want to see my son in his 30s.  And he is like that today.  I have been practicing this all my life, but now I can pass it on to others,” said Astanda Sazdba.

During the meeting, the specialist revealed the main of these most important, in her opinion, principles of education.  For example, it is important for any parent who wants to instill leadership qualities in children to understand that “a leader is someone who initiates what is happening and is responsible.  His behavior depends on decisions made, based on his values, and not on environmental conditions.”

“In short, I talked about how not to prevent a child from growing up and being himself, how to educate him so that not the environment influences him, but he himself can influence the environment.  I talked about what tools help parents and children when they get into a dead end, and how to get out of this dead end,” the expert commented on her participation in the work of the Parents’ club.

Astanda Sadzba’s presentation raised many questions.  Parents were interested in whether to send a child to kindergarten or it is better to bring him up at home, how to build trusting relationships with a child, what role grandmothers and grandfathers play in raising children, and much more.

The head of the Parents’ club, Kama Kvitsiniya, noted that since the meeting on February 8 was not the first meeting of parents at the Club, this helped the participants “gain a certain amount of knowledge” and formulate thoughtful questions.  She also noticed that much of what was said by the coach had something in common with what the previous guests of the club said.  The head of the club believes that all this allowed the parents participating in the meetings to better understand the information received.

“As part of this meeting, we discussed specific topics.  For example, what is a child’s energy, how to learn to understand and [correctly] direct it.  The specialist drew attention to many important things.  In particular, communication issues, when it seems to us that our children understand us, but in fact we do not convey information to them.  It is important to focus on the little things on which a lot depends in terms of upbringing,” concluded Kama Kvitsiniya.

Mramza Delba is a regular member of the WAC Parents’ club: so far she has not missed any of the meetings.  In her opinion, after each such meeting “something is changing for the better” in parents.

“The most important thing that I learned for myself from this meeting is that it is necessary to correctly redistribute the energy of the child,” Delba shared, and gave a recent example: “Today my child once again wanted my attention, he wanted to play, but I had to leave to this meeting. I did not give him the attention he was waiting for.  I understand that I could not apply the principle of distracting the attention of a child.”

An important part of the meeting for the participants was the topic of trust between parents and children, the club member added.

The Parents’ club is a special project at the Discussion club of the World Abaza Congress. It began its work on November 30.  Any parent can become a member of the club.  According to the organizers, the main condition for this is “interest and motivation”.