After attending the first session on a very reputed parenting workshop
organized by Happy Family Foundation (Jitubhai Shah) in Surat today, my mind is
buzzing with thoughts and questions.
The workshop conveners by their own admission have drawn heavily from various books a prominent one being - 'How to talk so kids will listen and listen so kids will talk' by Faber and Mazlish.
A popular book that is a free read on the Kindle that I received, it falls in the category of self help books that many of us detest and look upon with such scorn. In fact, the book is a fabulous read but not, as one might think, a substitute for this stimulating parenting workshop. The fallacy is that we CAN teach ourselves to be better - It doesn't take a parenting course or 21 odd hours spent at a goddamn workshop!
Ah! How we fool ourselves!
As any avid reader will testify, reading a book does not automatically change our personality; it does not erase the notions of parenting handed down to us by generations. But a structured intensive workshop that forces one to practice specified skills and share peer feedback, appears to be a more effective tool for change.
The singular achievement of this workshop is the degree of self awareness that the very first session has brought about. As old participants have testified and I have witnessed in a close friend, the workshop effectively brings about a perceptible and sustained change in the attitude of the parent.
The crux of the matter appears to be this - in our
communication with our children we are scarcely able to keep aside our own
emotions and insecurities. Every conversation with the child is fraught with the anxiety that we haven’t tried hard enough to convince them, that they
will fall behind their peers or that they will inherit our worst failings! Through
our topsy-turvy way of looking at the world, we try to fit them into the cubby-holes of 'an ideal child'!
So an 'ideal child' must excel in academics, sports and music…never
mind if he helped out with the dishes with his mom!
 |
| Let the dreamer just be! |
We are so lost in the daily trials and tribulations of our
lives that forcing the child to clean his room takes priority over lending him
an ear. My frustration at picking up after them gets voiced in unbelievably uncouth
words and gestures. I can give perfect answers to all the questions listed in the workshop parenting questionnaire yet will fail in implementing most of the listed skills.
Couple all that with the fact that women today feel the need
to establish their identity as well, much before the birds have flown from the
nest and you have a perfect recipe for a high pressure cauldron - boiling and
simmering!
In short there are no easy answers. We don’t know who
cleaned up ultimately and we don’t know (and don’t care!) whether the child eventually
returned to his cricket coaching classes. Perhaps there is a greater ideal than
getting stuck in these trifles - to establish a loving and
nurturing relationship between the child and the parent. And this is the objective that the convener explicitly lays down in the first session of the workshop. That objective supersedes all other ambitions
that we may dream for the child. Amen.
