By Dr Malini Saba

When you become a parent, something shifts quietly inside you. You realise how much of life is shaped not by big lessons, but by the little things. The way you react when milk spills. How you speak when you’re tired. Whether you listen when your child interrupts. These moments - small and ordinary - become their understanding of love, respect, and safety.

For me, real change never starts in a conference hall or a grand initiative. It begins at home. Around dinner tables. In those unplanned talks before bedtime that no one tweets about.

After years of working with women and children around the world, I’ve come to see parenting as one of the most powerful forms of activism there is. When you raise a child who listens, who feels deeply, who chooses kindness when anger would be easier - that’s how you begin to shift the world, one home at a time.

Parenting with Awareness

Modern parenting can feel like a sprint that never ends. Everyone’s running - to classes, grades, sports, milestones. Somewhere along the way, we lose the calm. I’ve done that too. But I realised that when we parent from fear, we hand that fear to our children. When we parent from awareness, we pass on steadiness.

A study by Harvard’s Center on the Developing Child found that children who grow up with emotionally responsive parents are more likely to show empathy as adults. Another, by Yale’s Center for Emotional Intelligence, found that emotionally intelligent kids are more likely to help or share. That doesn’t come from pressure; it comes from connection.

Conscious parenting doesn’t mean you never get it wrong. It means you pause long enough to see what’s really happening - the look in your child’s eyes, the quiet before a meltdown, the chance to listen instead of correcting. Every child is learning how to be human, and we are their first teachers.

Psychologist Dr Shefali Tsabary calls children “our mirrors”. She’s right. They reflect our impatience, our fears, our restlessness and that’s uncomfortable. But it’s also where growth begins.

And as Dr Daniel Goleman, who pioneered emotional intelligence, reminds us, empathy and self-awareness often shape success far more than IQ ever will. When we model calm, compassion, and integrity, our children learn that strength doesn’t need to be loud to be powerful.

Helping Children Feel at Home in the World

We’re living in a time that’s both deeply connected and strangely divided. Our children see it all - the headlines, the arguments, the walls we build. The question is: what do we show them in return?

You don’t need a passport to raise a global citizen. Start small. Read stories from another culture. Cook food from a different country. Learn to say 'thank you' in three languages. Celebrate a festival that isn’t your own.

These gestures sound simple, but they shape how a child sees the world - not as “us and them”, but as “all of us”.

Psychologist Dr Michele Borba, who has written beautifully about empathy, says compassion grows through experience, not instruction. She’s right. Children don’t remember the lectures; they remember what they witness.

Research from the University of Toronto showed that children who had multicultural experiences before age ten were significantly more open-minded and empathetic later in life. Exposure builds bridges before bias even has a chance to take root.

The Power of Small Acts

Change doesn’t always come through grand gestures. It lives in the smallest habits:

• Taking a deep breath before reacting.
• Saying, “You’re right, I was wrong.”
• Letting children help, even if it takes longer.
• Praising kindness as much as success.
• Speaking gently about people who aren’t in the room.

These are the quiet acts that shape emotional strength and humility. According to UNICEF, children who grow up in nurturing homes are more likely to become adults who contribute to their communities. That’s what love looks like when it multiplies.

From Home to Humanity

When I imagine the future- for my daughter and for your Children - I don’t dream of endless competition. I dream of compassion standing side by side with ambition.

Every time a parent chooses patience over anger, attention over distraction, and understanding over convenience, the world heals a little. Imagine millions of such choices every day; that’s how humanity transforms quietly, steadily, beautifully.

Raising a global citizen isn’t about geography. It’s about raising a heart that recognises no borders.

If we can do that - raise not just capable individuals, but kind ones, we leave behind more than success. We leave behind a gentler world.