Sunday, October 14, 2012

Of complains, secrets, sadness and countless hugs

Recently my life accounts of balancing between complains about J from some sources and my sanity for remaining a reasonable mother. I was told that J does not like following the rules in a certain set up and that I should have a chat with her. Also that J sometimes can be very dominating on the child minders and they get overwhelmed on certain occasions as they don't know how to tackle unruly kids without being scolded or punished. And that J poses challenges to the adults and that with very strong voice.

It is scary at times when I see that a child is asked to be well behaved every hour of the day. It is troublesome to see that the complete setup of educators and child carers in India are differently trained and are not keen in dealing with child psychology and are not trained to channelize children's energy through planned or unplanned activities. They want certain rules to be followed, they are not prepared for questions to be asked against the rules. They don't like whys, they want only full-stops. They get frustrated when children don't listen to them and they don't try explain the reason behind their 'No'. It is also scarier to see that J can get really unruly/impolite on certain occasions and challenge the carers. She is always a strong headed person, I know it from very early stage of my parenting. But I was not prepared for such rebel situations

Till now my trouble was to deal with a shy child, who would not open up in front of others, in spite of her utmost inner wish. This also means that a shy person can be stronger than a vocal one. I was one too. So now I see a child who is still very shy in front of strangers but can become a chatterbox and argumentative little person when she is in a known and comfortable surrounding. She can charge adults when she finds things different from what she knows. This I am trying to modulate in her as she should be more acceptable and that she should be polite in putting even her point of disagreement to others. Also that she should not challenge some rules which are made for all. She should understand that different people have different acceptance capacity and her strong opinions  can be taken as rudeness by others. It is not always right to say things directly even when she means best. People don't want to listen direct things all the time. This is something I have learnt from life experiences.

But well just like every mother, may be I am making a mistake to make her understand everything at her 8th year. May be I should just let her learn through her mistakes. May be it does not matter how much I explain the consequences to her, she will not understand until she faces the consequences herself.

 I should put less control on how she would behave, and just concentrate on putting thank you, please and sorry in her vocabulary and then let her be herself.

Another thing, is her being getting lonely at times. She says her friends were not playing with her in school break. A known scenario again. One day she was very disturbed and was kranky. Other day she was extremely quite and told me about the situation only after coaxing her a lot.
Is it a situation of bullying or it that she was bossy and her friends did not like her being that?
It is hard to find out. I don't know how much filtering J does while explaining a situation to me.
But I told her to enjoy company of her own, eat her lunch and than draw, write or read during lunch.
I told her to try making friends with others, she told that class is divided into different groups and it is hard to enter into other groups too. "Okay", I told her, "than just be with yourself and wait till your group comes to you." "It is hard to be without any friend", she  replied. Having moved so many places, having lost friends each time, and then loosing them for some silly reasons and misunderstanding. Also at times only differences in opinions are considered as not being friend with each other and we part ways. I do know it is hard to be friend-less or loose a friend. But than it is difficult expectation to always have a friend. I have had moments of no friends and now I have learned to accept those situations and keep my calm on those occasions by being a good friend to myself.

Again, there is only that much I can do to help J out from such situations. I can try to keep her positive and hopeful about friendship but then to find, manage and being friend with a friend is a process she has to learn and sometimes unlearn herself.

All these are intense, crucial and critical moments of parenting and I have found that one thing that keeps her moving are countless, unexpected and warm hugs! Also that she would be sad and sorry and nothing other than leaving her at that can help her out.

2 comments:

  1. I wondered back to those days when mom used to grab me and lift me to bed every afternoon over the weekends. "Sona .....ghumie jao", she used to say in her dulcet doting tone, tired after the days work. She used to levee along the edges of the bed to ensure her Sona gets his sleep, curling and adjusting uncomfortably to somehow get her rest. I never realized the potential bliss of sleep that time. I used to curse her for being so boring and sleeping along in a bright weekend afternoon. So only activity that I could have carried out in the realm of the bed enclosed by my curling mom was playing a self narrative movie with my boxes and pencils. My mom somehow had learned to sleep amidst the 'dishum', 'dishum' noise her 'sona' made, occasionally mumbling in a sleepy voice "Sona ghumie jao" while her little Sona made faces on her. Finally somewhere at four she would finally wake up and reprimand me for being so naughty the entire afternoon and explain me the aftermath of any such behavior again in future. The poor soul had to face the same thing every afternoon at weekends . Ya I was little naughty.
    The really amazing thing is this inexpiable love that a Mother harbors for her child, its without any ulterior favors in return. It is just giving. Its so beautiful. Nice blog.

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  2. Someday, she'll read your blog and this post and thank you for being so caring :) I'm sure she'll find her way around, we all did.

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