Give wings to fly

Affection and attention are keys that unlock a child’s real emotions and feelings towards different situations he / she faces from the time of birth. A crying baby who is consoled by his parents knows the meaning of security and comfort. A child who fell down from his bike ride searches for affection with tear-filled eyes only to find his father attending to his wound which makes him feel loved and care for. As time passes by so do the years of every child but the need for affection and attention never ends, even we as adults and parents ourselves find so much happiness when we are felt important and valued. But, do you think everyone is given these? I can show you through a real story how unfortunate it is to feel ignored and left out despite having parents and guardians who are well able to look after you.

There was a girl from a middle-class family who had a great passion for dancing, she would not leave any opportunity she was given by her school to present herself in beautiful outfits and to show her graceful and talented moves. However, she wasn’t too keen on her regular studies, she failed with low marks on tests and exams often, but she wasn’t disappointed as she was having dreams of becoming a professional dancer when she grows up. She often got scolded and insulted by her teachers and even let down by her own parents, she felt hurt as she wasn’t able to express her true self to anyone. Her family was quite dysfunctional, her parents would give priority to arguments and violence which led to constant fights and unpleasantness in every corner of her house and would stay with energy filled with negative for months which filled her with anxiety, sadness, resentment and what not! Although her home didn’t feel homely, she would turn the walls of her room with temporary happiness when she danced with songs that made all the pain go away. Every time she would participate in any dance event, she would search the entire audience to find her parents, but again, to her disappointment, she couldn’t find them when she was moving to the tunes, her parents were busy fighting in ugly tones. She won the hearts of many through her talented gift, but she never got the actual gift she was looking for. The gift of understanding and encouragement… How can a few arguments become more important than your own child’s outstanding performance? When the entire audience is on their feet applauding your child how come you dim the lights of your heart, stand in one place and give value to a few displeasing words? Bringing up a child is not just giving birth to their bodies, you have to give birth to their soul too, underestimating a child's ability and capability are not just. This girl’s abilities and capabilities were not given enough worth so the dreams drifted away. Unsaid words and undone dreams shouldn’t be any child’s future.  

Never drift yourself away from your child/children. They deserve to be loved, cared, and heard. Yes! You need to heal them by listening to them. They are their own person and it’s your duty as parents to let them be their true self and not become scared of you. Whenever they face any difficulty, they should think I need to tell my mom or dad, not my mom will kill me if I tell her what just happened. Children do mistakes. They are humans just like us, and we all learn by mistakes. Demotivating and predicting a child’s future based on their mistakes is your biggest irreversible mistake! We won’t be living in a world with this type of technologies if none made a mistake. Mistakes are the main key to success. Don’t let your precious kids feel helpless with restless thoughts on how he or she must behave in order to please you.

I will tell you a small incident of my own life. I was very weak in math, so weak that I ended up with 2 out of 100, and I was like this for a long time until I came to grade sixth and when my syllabus started to get tough, my parents thought to get me into tuition. So, they found a qualified teacher and got him to come home to teach me as it was comfortable since my dad wasn’t able to drop and pick me up due to his tight schedule at work. I didn’t improve in math. I just got worse, reason, if you may ask, is that I felt rather discouraged by my tuition teacher. He visited my home thrice a week and all the three days he would say “If you don’t do well in your subjects, you are good for nothing” which brought down my confidence to the lowest level. Being a weak student, I was already scared of math and this tuition teacher made it impossible for me to learn. So, finally, I cried and told my mom I can’t study like this I felt like a loser. She immediately asked my dad to stop the tuition and told me “You can achieve anything if you try, but to achieve you should make sure you really do try your best.” I got a tiny motivation from her words for which I stopped feeling sad.

As days passed by I got to know about a teacher who taught many weak kids and helped them to pass well in exams. Now since my 10th board exams were nearing I wanted to pass, so I discussed with my parents and my dad enrolled me to class. This teacher directly told my dad “Sir, if she doesn't pass, I will return every single penny you spent on this class.” My dad was shocked seeing such confidence. I was taught by a lovely Indian teacher. She was like a mother to me… She went step by step with every lesson, with every equation, with every calculation so smoothly that I unknowingly mastered all the lessons she taught me. I still don’t know how well I learned with her, I scored a clear 57 out of 100 for my final exam and the first person to call me to ask my results was my lovely teacher. She was happier than I was. All along the way she only encouraged me. She never said I can’t. All she said was “You can do it, but you have to try.”

So, this is what I practice with my kids now, and would love all of you reading, especially parents, to try to understand your children. Help them to come out of their shell. Improvise your teaching methods which will benefit their inner abilities to shine.