Raising kids, not expectations

Today was the usual ritual of PTM – Parent Teacher Meeting or Pain in Throat and Mouth after giving thousand clarifications and explanations to the kid’s teacher for his acceptable and unacceptable behavior.

Not only that, there we had that customary - setting the kid right on the path to improvement and evaluation.

I was delighted and numb too.

This time teachers were praising his improvement, except a few points. 

I remember in the last semester I was called after school hours to review his performance and it was diving into bottom.

He got three out of 20 in mathematics and showed similar results in social studies. What teachers were more aghast were his lies and huge mountains of lies!

Parents either defending their kid or gather up all the history of the kid in front of the teacher to prove that their kid is born like that and they are helpless in reforming the kid. Now, it’s teacher’s duty to do so.

When a child is spending most of his time at home, how a teacher can be held responsible for all his wrong deeds!

I, myself believe that I am no reformer and especially while dealing with kids. I learn and try to learn from their actions, reactions, behaviors and motivators.

Teaching responsible behavior to a kid is a tough task; sometimes when we suppose that we are behaving responsibly even then we are breaking some rules and sometimes we go easy, which makes children getting confused on a standard responsible behavior.

They observe us closely.

Sometimes they tend to ignore certain good things happening around for the time being but it gets into their subconscious mind even if they seem to be busy playing.

They have a growing mind and things and events certainly leave an impression.

I don’t know I was right or wrong but I unaccepted my kid’s behavior in front of the teacher as my own. I took my son to the nearest Dhaba (roadside restaurant) and gave him the option of either improve or learn work there.

From that very day, he improved his academics and behavior too.

I had to pitch into checking his notebooks now and then but he got to be more responsible and maintained his work so well that without any outside assistance he secured sixteen marks whereas he was getting three out of twenty. This is just to prove a point.

In fact the biggest satisfaction was he was maintaining consistency in completing his work on time.

But this time, I had a bigger challenge. He is poor in maintaining Index in his notebooks, which is an unpleasant task for him. Moreover, his Spanish notebook was not signed by his teacher from start to finish, which was ridiculous because he was reminded time and again for this.

Now, I made him take his notebook to his Spanish teacher in PTM and I explained the situation to the teacher in front of him. 

He was not so bad in that language after all but he was given the option of leaving his self chosen subject of Spanish, so he had the opportunity of leaving the extra work and enjoy some other not so happening things in his class.

Now, it became a challenge for him to convince us that he chose the subject out of his free will.

He was reluctant to do the work there and then and insisted that the notebook would be submitted in coming Monday. But I think I was a tough nut as a parent. I got to be firm and he had the laurel of getting all his notebook work completed and signed.

We learn each day. Parenting is neither easy nor tough.

It is a learning phase and a journey which we need to tread carefully, keeping our mind cool (which is easier said) and in centre to get the right focuses. We have to be firm and flexible at the same time.

When we commit mistake we should be ready to accept.

I remember day before last night I was just back from a hectic stay in hospital and when my eleven years’ old told me something, I shouted back.

Later, I felt bad.

Next morning, while dropping her school, I apologized.

I was surprised to get her reply,’ it was okay, anyway you had sleepless nights in hospital, so you were tired.’ 

I told her that it gave me no right to shout unnecessarily even if I had a bad day or night; and we regained each other’s wavelength.

Now, this apology thing has one more dimension to it. I think the core of that problem is our over concerned attitudes. Even when my kids didn’t learn rolling in their beds, we started being bothered about enrolling them in the best schools available.

And to meet the idiosyncrasies of parents like us, there are a number of schools with open arms to get our kids enrolled even before he or she is not out of the womb.

Till this year, I had been enrolling my kids for all available extra classes, vacation camps, tours and what not but gradually it is getting into me that we need to give space to our kids. Not everything available may be good for them.

Let them be the choosers as per their abilities when they are ready to accept that with a wise mind.

Overburdening the kids with our choices is not as good as we perceive.

We brought them in this world for our pleasure, for our needs. They never pleaded us to bring them on this earth and impose all sorts of rules and regulations on them.

We are their guardians. Their caretakers. The day we become their masters, we lose the perspective.

I wonder on my abilities of being a parent. I think there is no term called ideal parents or ideal children. I leave them whatever they are with a hawk’s eyes.

There cannot be a set parameter of judging anybody.

Can you make a fish turn into a bird? We humans are somewhat like that, I suppose. Each one has its own uniqueness.

We are so very different from other species because we are altogether different in ourselves as humans. One person may seem to be entirely different species than the other.

Other than humans, we can predict at least certain things about other species, but here, you have a whole set of new parameters of evolution to consider and then also every day a new research nullify the one published yesterday.

And here we are; expecting ideal behavior from our kids.

As long as they are taking good care of themselves, their surroundings, understand respect to self and others, learning and are no threat to anybody; they should be left to themselves to explore.

Am I being nosy again or is it too much to ask for?