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Editorial
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 Arindam ChaudhuriEditor-in-Chief,
The Sunday Indian |
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Are we fit to be parents?
Arindam Chaudhuri, Editor-in-chief, The Sunday Indian
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My learning on people started in IIPM classrooms... in classes of Dr N R Chatterjee and Dr J K Mitra – both ex Deans of FMS Delhi, my gurus, gods of psychology and great human beings. Their classes made me so mesmerised that though I took finance as my elective, I attended all classes of HR too and became a very keen student of psychology and behavioural sciences. With time, this took me beyond classroom books to the world of Eric Berne's Transactional Analysis to books like ‘Born to Win’ to the world of Sigmund Freud and Karl Jung. At one point of time in my life, I went so much into this that I ended up reading semi-medical books like abnormal psychology etc! After I became a leadership trainer, the learning only kept growing. But all that was nothing till my son, Che, was born in the year that marked the beginning of the new millennium!
It’s been almost ten years now and the human behaviour I have focussed upon most during this decade has been child behaviour. I have since then almost raised four kids. No, they aren’t all mine! But one can find me often with them in my free time – Che and the three other kids of my three friends! And I hope I have been raising them happily to become happy kids! Today, speaking on kids – how to bring them up – in informal and formal forums like schools etc has become one of my favourite topics, simply because the more I see parents around me – stressed and successful – the more I see their kids going wrong! I will share here only a few key things which decide if we are fit to be parents and raise happy kids or not.
I have seen we mostly bring up kids without realising that this is our biggest contribution to this earth and its well being. The kids who had a grandfather who always told them that one day they will become Presidents of the USA and gave them that confidence from their early childhood actually went on to become John F Kennedy and Robert Kennedy. At the same time, the kid of the boy from an abusive family with constant negative reinforcements went on to become Lee Oswald, the man who murdered John F Kennedy. What I am trying to say is that we are the ones who will decide if tomorrow’s world will be a happy world or a sad world. Children are what we make of them. Today, science has also proven beyond all doubts that genes decide less than a percent of human beings psychology. It’s their upbringing that decides it. Genes only determine various biological aspects inside the body, and not psychological. Neither does a kid become great because of genes nor useless because of the same. We make what a kid is to become; so we parents – and to some extent teachers – are wholly responsible for what he becomes.
That brings us to the point: So what should we do to bring up great kids and become worthy of being parents? Well, if there is just one thing we must believe in and we must tell our kids – and I have always told all kids – it is, “Love is more important than material things.” It is almost like the magic potion for happiness. We need to believe “passionately” that love is more important than any material item in this world. If we don’t believe in it but tell our kids the same, one day they will question us about why we’re not following the same philosophy we preached. And all the teaching will go waste. But once you believe in it passionately, things will all be different. You just have to keep explaining this to your child from the age of 6 months – only this simple line. And before 6 months? Just love him endlessly through physical touch and positive reinforcements and smiles. That’s our only job as parents.
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But what about the daily problems of your kids doing some things that are not right? Well, every time the child does something you don’t want her to do, your only job is to explain the same with a smile and friendly manner – whatever be the age of the child. A child’s life has to be necessarily full of positive strokes and “adult to adult ego state” conversations on every topic of importance. An adult to adult ego state conversation is where we don’t use either our “parent ego state” of making authoritative sweeping statements without feeling the need to clarify to the child, or the “child ego state” displaying excessive emotions of any kind. So, it’s a conversation which is based on talks, facts and logic but explained sweetly. This is the only solution to all our issues of how to handle problems. Whenever a child knows that the parent has endless time to explain things and is free of any fear of being admonished, he expresses himself freely and then listens invariably to what’s logical – just because he feels respected and loved. And it has never ever failed to work in my last one decade of bringing up the four kids!
One might immediately question, what happens when a kid gets adamant and throws a tantrum and starts crying? Well, kids are too intelligent. They do that only when they know it succeeds! So the best way is to again take the kid in an embrace and tell firmly that whatever he wants, he will not get, however much he cries.
But that doesn’t mean that you love him any less. So as long as he cries, you will keep loving him, but won’t allow him to do what he wants. The kid will cry louder, will try to force himself to freedom, but all you have to do is just embrace the kid, let him cry and constantly tell him that the more he cries, the more you would love him – because you really do love him. And then tell him that though you feel bad when he cries, he still would not get his way ever with adamancy, and that once he finishes crying, you will both talk logically on why you can’t let him do what he wants to. Or buy what he wants to. And constantly remind the child that love is more important than anything else in the world. So, if it’s a toy the child is asking for, the point to be made is that love is more important than the toy and that the kid will get all the love in the world but not the toy, as there are too many kids in the world whose fathers don’t love them as much, but give them lots of toys – tell your child that he surely doesn’t want to be in that kind of a home. The child starts realising the logic sooner than you can imagine. Almost the first full sentence all the kids around me ever said was, “Love is more important than toys.”
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Comments
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Priya From Nagpur--
6/8/2010 1
Thanks Arindam for sharing this.But what when both parents have to work for more then 10 hrs and have to keep child in crech.
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dr sankaran sundar MD DNB(Neph) From Bangalore--
6/7/2010 1
Very thought provoking article from a young parent like Arindham. I have three grown up sons ( two of them doctors-one recently married and one Chartered Accountant )
and I cannot but agree with all the things you have mentioned. My wife ( a school teacher in Mathematics) and I have never spanked our boys and have only given them love and good values and are proud of their acheivements and this we feel is mostly by gods grace, good luck and all the love we have given as mentioned in your great article.
God bless you Arindham.
Dr Sankaran Sundar MD DNB(Neph)
Chief Nephrologist
Columbia Asia Hospitals India
www.kanti.com www.columbiaaisa.com
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M.I.H Qureshi From hyderabad--
6/5/2010 4
This refers to Arindam chaudhuris editorial "are we fit to be parents?" (TSI, May 31-june 6).The article made an interesting reading.It rightly pointed out that we must make our kids realise that "love is more important and not material things".In this fast paced and developing world , children have been made a scapegoat.They are seen as a mere thing to enhance ones reputation and name.They are burdened unnecessarily with the weight of competition.Every parent wants to turn their child into a jack of all trades.The child not only undergoes immense psychological pressure but also physical stress.This can be dangerous as this situation can cause the child to become angry and in some cases make him violent.We always keep telling each other that "children are the future of this country".So its upto us to shape this future in a right way.Hope your editorial helps parents realise what true parenthood is.
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