How would you like if somebody comes to you after long days of work and burdens you with a lot of questions? Did you get the vegetables, did you run the errands or did you do the work which I had reminded? Isn’t it extremely frustrating? What If we ask our child questions about the school in a similar way? We feel agitated to get back home if someone back home starts shooting at us with some questions like these after a day full of responsible work back at workplace. Human mind is designed in such a way that feeling at home literally means coming back home and unwinding with family, spending a quality time and gearing up for the next big Day after a sound, good night’s sleep.

We adults show frustration and agony by putting it out in a format of words. These words usually come out to combat the stress inside as. But what about the children who hardly can frame any sentences? Have you ever thought why children become fussy or cranky at times? It is not right on our parts to blame the poor children for crying once they are at school or they are home after school. They go to school like a clean slate after their beauty sleep. Next day, they wake up with the mind refresh, full of energy and anticipation about the day in the school.

At school they learn many things from Math, science, learning the nuances of a new language etc. They might have acquired so many skills that, it would be exciting for them to share their experiences with so many people. Children are so expressive that all they need is a reliable, go- to person, who can be all ears when the children talk. Showing off their painting skills, flaunting the small craft thingy which they did it with their best friend or proudly exhibiting some new skill which they learnt it during the football match. There can be many such pleasant things which was overwhelming or any unpleasant situations that might have upset them when they were in school. It is us who have to make sure that they express everything, hide nothing from their parents to have a perfect balance of good and challenging experiences at school.

Trust your kids for them to trust you!

So what are those question which we as parents should I ask our children once they are back from school? Is it just about how your day was or is there something more than that? Let’s look into to some of the questions which may actually brighten their tiny minds and help them to build a healthy relationship with you:

• Instead of starting with the question, give them and answer. How about starting with -” I missed you”? Or something like “I had a great day, what about you?”.

• In place of checking into their lunch boxes and giving them a stare for not completing their food, you may ask them “Whom did you have lunch with?”. This will give them a confidence that you are more concerned about them having a good company over being non- considerable for the dislike over the food.

• “What homework do you have to complete?” – this may sound lame and so much to the point, that it will seem as though you are imposing something over them. You can use words like -” Shall we look into to your bag?” or “let’s sit together and see what work your teacher has asked you to do.”. This happy involvement from our side will make them come back home with the wide smile, with confidence that they sure are going to find so much peace and attention which might not always be same at school.

• If in case your child just finished and exam or test at school, make sure you never ask your child about how much marks would you expect out of today’s test. Instead, appreciate them with applause that they successfully completed a test today. Next, ask them-“which was the best answer, which you wrote today?” or “which problem did you think solved it better?”. Positive approach in such situations helps them tackle the bigger and better problems once they are adults. Any conversation starting with a negative note will fail to fetch satisfying and mind consoling results.

Questions can be many, but it is also important for us to not have any expectation of giving positive responses from the children for any kind of sugar coated conversations from our end. Let them be. They are still young to understand the complexities of being very courteous in their responses or framing right sentences so that it won’t sound very rude. A healthy parent-child relationship is built only when a child “BEHAVES” as it has to be and the parent behaves in a fashion which they expect their child would turn out to be. The learning must always be mutual.

SO WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO ASK YOUR CHILD TODAY?

Lifestyle Changes And The Changes In Life

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Mother 1: “I am sick and tired of shouting at my daughter. She’ll be 7 next month and I don’t know till when I would be yelling at her to do things on her own.

Mother 2: My daughter is our only child. I usually don’t ask her to do any work as she is the darling of the whole family. Dont want to burden her as she would be burdened with so many other things once she grows up. [Smiles]

This is a usual conversation which is exchanged by the mothers in India for whom taking care of children is the ultimate ambition in this world. They seek solace in cooking their son’s favourite dish or getting their daughters dolled up for any small occasion as they decide that their child is special and different – Just like anyone else. But generations together there is a tradition which is followed wherein the parents who are so cautious and possessive about their “Apples of the Eye” tend to tumble during the teens of their kids. It might be the adolescence tantrum or the typical expectation driven parenting that is triggering this. But as they say – ‘There’s a solution for any problem’ it is upto us to deal with the change and take up this transition in a smooth way.

लालयेत् पञ्च वर्षाणि दश वर्षाणि ताडयेत् / प्राप्ते तु षोडशे वर्षे पुत्रं मित्रवदाचरेत् //

This is a famous Sanskrit saying which gives a glimpse of an effective parenting skill in a jiffy. This means that a child has to be cuddled and treated with utmost love till five after which we have to be strict and maintain high discipline till it is ten. But once the child turns sixteen, a child who isn’t a child anymore should be treated as your friend.

One has to be definitely proud of our Indian tradition which is never out of fashion. This shloka of vedic era still holds good in the present day. The strict system of Gurukula emphasizes the importance of discipline and systematized living; which is why Boarding School is still a winning option considered by many parents each year. Back then nobody owned a Smartphone, nor watched television. But at the same time nobody was “Bored” either. So what is that which is bothering today’s children who get bored so quickly and get excited instantaneously looking at the gaming consoles?

Primitive living which was simple and sober was definitely neither easy nor sophisticated as what the present day living looks like. They had to search or hunt for their food in jungles, making fire involved mental strategies or even understanding each other was as equivalent as writing codes for a website. But they lived a life full of content and energy to dream about a better tomorrow. So what is that minor thing we are missing out today?

It is the “LIFESTYLE”. Seriously, our grandparents never complained about child obesity to any paediatrician, they never had any child psychologist to consult, they never were aware of any student counselling agents who would tell them what to do. Our ancestors had an answer for everything. And that answer was within them. They ate what they could burn and burnt everything what they ate. They knew their capabilities and knew what and how much to expect. Simplicity was their key for a smooth life.

But today there are not much of such traces of humble living. Competition, opportunities, inventions and discoveries has provoked the mind so much as to believe that there is no life beyond this. For a child, watching Animal Planet or Discovery Channel is the only source of information to know more about this world. An engineering student commits suicide after he had a backlog of two subjects. A medical student becomes a slave for drugs who is unable to take the stress of studies. Why should our kids suffer a future like this? Haven’t they been told that there is a world beyond this world which is actually our world? A world filled with so many worthy things which are missed out in experiencing? Can’t we do anything to pull this thought of our children’s head that an enjoyable livelihood can actually fetch them something good?

Accepting Criticism – Edustoke

Is there anything we parents cannot do? Oh yes we can. We can do anything we want when the question is about our children. A slight change in our lifestyle and general habits can work wonders. The road to success might get rocky, but the destination is always a bed of roses. Let us go through those practices which our parents were adamant about us following those.

• Staying active: Physical activity which involved walking distances, cycling to places and running errands.
• Food and nutrition: Less of junk and more of balanced home cooked wherein fruits and veggies were like staple food.
• Sense of responsibility and staying organised: Being accountable for things we did and taking care of our routine tasks by ourselves without any adult supervision.
• Distance with electronic gadgets: A golden era where radio and TV were a luxury.
• Read…Write…Repeat: Amar Chitra Katha, Tinkle, Chacha Choudry and Wisdom were our anytime buddies. We used dictionaries for Google and Encyclopaedia in the place of its lazy grandchild Wikipedia.
• Hygiene and Tidiness: Washing hands was still in fashion as compared to sanitizer and tissues…Huh? What were they???
• Early to bed, early to rise: No reality shows or serial vamps were then born to keep our brain from shutting down for a goodnight’s sleep. Sleeping at 9 pm and waking up by 6 am was no big deal.
• Spending time with family: Those countless hours of grandma’s stories, that extra cup of Paneer Sabji just to stay with our parents during lunch and dinners and those weekend pillow fights with our siblings. Life was bliss!
• Positivity: At birthday parties we sang songs and danced for our own tunes. We were never aware of a DJ who played something called “Party anthems”. We just knew our National Anthem.

Was it nostalgic enough to get that natural, pleasant curve on your lips? Yes! What we had was “LIFE”. What our children are living is a beta version of a perfect life which may change every day with an update called “Trend”. A trend which is making no child safe, a trend which is celebrating somebody else’s culture as “COOL”.

A change might not take so long but an impact of it will for sure stay for long. Small teenie-weenie things matter the most. As parents or teachers we can implicate some small changes which would bring drastic changes, all for good. At this time when spending time with family is an agenda for weekend, some small homework has to be done by us if we wish that our kids would become just how we thought they should become.

Leadership and Organisational Behavior

• Spend time with them: Read a story or watch a movie. Go for a trek or attend a concert. Choices are many but the motive is just one.
• Watch yourselves: Home is the first school wherein you are their textbooks. They imitate you and idolize you. You better be a good child yourself who zips their lip to avoid swearing while driving or keeps calm when your spouse is on your nerves.
• Encourage, Educate and Empathize: Before pointing at them, make sure you believe the fact that you too were of the same mental makeup during their age. Take it easy, be patient.
• Nurture their dreams: Disappointment in their choices can prove fatal. Sit, talk, share and sort things out. Hasty yelling and uncouth discussions must be strictly prohibited.

Parenting is not so easy and not so difficult. It is just a small understanding of the fact that the kids grow up to learn and we learn how to grow them up. A thin line between being strict and being reasonable is the hurdle which we need to pass to successfully accomplish this marathon of effective parenting.

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