I am 24 and I still live with my parents .My Mom still shouts at me to “Eat my vegetables” everyday and dad still tells me” when I was your age..” stories when I try to do something.

My dad had to take up big responsibilities early in life. When grandpa died due to some health problem, dad had to take care of his whole family –his mom, brother and three sisters. All of a sudden he had to take financial and other important decisions for the family.

I always think his parenting style reflects the way he grew up. The things he went through made him strong and independent. Although he keeps asking me about what I do every now and then and sometimes gives first-class advises, he never questions anything I do. This process made me strong and gave me some precious life lessons as he gave me the liberty to experience everything on my own.

My friends always tell me how different my parents are. The way they treat me or the freedom they give me are all building blocks to my personality today. While mom always told me to be nice and careful, dad told me to be a rebel sometimes and always encouraged me to go that extra mile while doing something. Here are few things my dad taught me in a different way:

He let me take my own decisions:

Whenever I got my report card from school, Dad never asked me about my rank in the class but if I did good and just needed a yes/no as an answer. He never compared me to anyone and always told me not to worry about where I stand in the class in terms of grades.

Even when I wanted to start my own business for the first time he respected my decision to quit my job and supported me through the process. My first business failed and he never said a word about that too. I learnt a big lesson on my own after that and the same applied to relationships and other stuff too. I failed sometimes and I knew why, as they were my own decisions I knew where I went wrong .These experiences helped me plan my next steps.

He also asked me to find my own solutions:

Often when we take our own decisions we might fail sometimes. As a kid I used to run to dad for help and he always helped but made me solve them on my own or gave me few advises which would often lead to the solution.

Tiniest things like travelling to college by public transport helped me learn certain things, when my car broke down and I asked dad for a ride he asked me to take public transport and I learnt a lot by traveling alone. It made me feel confident.

When I used to visit a local park every weekend with mom and dad .Mom always told me not run around like a crazy kid and to not get hurt but dad asked me to climb that big ladder , run that extra mile, take that biggest slide and he was always just beside me while I was running around doing things.

He made me understand money:

Even as a kid I always did my shopping on my own. Dad gave me some money when we were grocery shopping and I picked anything I liked and got those billed on my own. I loved doing this as a kid but later it did help a lot in being independent and economical.

I did learn a lot of other things from dad but these three stuck with me even today and help me each day in my life.