My Children are being Children

02.07.2010

I attended the MMA Management Excellence Awards function. I met Mr. V Ramamoorthy, Former IAS officer. He is pretty aged now. Although he is bent double and his voice is a bit quivering, his intellect is still pure and his clarity of thought is unaffected. An example of the triumph of the spirit over flesh.

He asked me what my children are doing. After telling him which class they were in at school, I said, 'Sir, my children are being children, which is what I want them to do now. After all this is the only time in their life when they would ever be children.' He really connected with this thought and laughed heartily with me.

Random Thoughts

Parenting

There is no such thing as quality time or quantity time. You should be available when you are needed.

Gender Bias

I am a person; not a gender. We should all be proud to be sentient human beings.

Death and Dying

An elegy is a recognition of the vacuum left by the departed person, accepting it and going forward.

“Why then? Why There? Why thus? We cry…The Heavens are Silent.”

W H Auden’s Elegy on the death of JFK.

Parenting

People who became parents in the sixties and seventies have no doubts or qualms about their abilities as parents or about their rights and expectations as such. They were entitled to be obeyed. Children had no choices then. You did what you were told. Sometimes you had options...like what colour to wear...and so on. “Parenting” was not a concept that people ever spoke about...except the rich...who could afford the psychiatrists, and, who needed them.

The children of the Sixties and Seventies, who are the parents of today are continuously in doubt about their “Parenting “ skills. They read books, attend seminars, try to spend “Value Time” with their children and end up becoming more confused.

It would be easy to brush away the whole concept of learning to be a parent as a non-starter. But, sometimes there is need to understand the issues before addressing them.

Here is a poem from “A handbook on Parenting” by Dr. C. S. Raju and Mr. T.V. Shivakumar, my good friend, fellow-trainer and authority on Parenting:

Tone of Voice

It is not what you say,

But the manner in which you say it;

It is not only the language you use,

But the tobne in which you convey it.

“Come here!” I sharply said,

And the child cowered and wept;

“Come here” I said gently with a smile,

And straight to my lap he crept.

Words may be mild and fair,

But the words may pierce like a dart;

Words may be soft as the summer air,

But the tone may break my heart.

Words come from the mind,

And grow by study and art;

But tone leaps from the inner self,

Revealing the state of the heart

For if you want behaviour to change,

Of this you must be aware;

More than words, it is the Tone of your voice

Which communicates how much you care.

Don’t you agree that this is a great advice not only in parenting but for every situation in life?