Educating beyond schooling

(article in the February issue of Responsible Parenting)

Indian students were once renowned the world over, not only for their capacity to work hard, but also for their levels of learning. It is far otherwise at present. The latest ASER document has some very depressing facts to report.  Despite fancy new education systems, plenty of do-it-yourself assignments, supplementary projects and exposure to the farthest frontiers of human knowledge, courtesy the Internet, the learning outcomes for Indian students are falling rapidly. Nor are they faring any better in terms of soft skills and creativity. The critical question then arises, are we raising a generation of ignoramuses or automatons? What is the role of today’s parents in ensuring that their children grow up into well-educated, balanced individuals?

It was renowned nineteenth century author and humourist Mark Twain who once advised someone, “Don’t let your children’s schooling get in the way of their education!” Never has this advice been more applicable to Indian parents than it is today. With learning outcomes as well as soft skills nosediving to alarming extents in the younger generations, the onus of ensuring a well-rounded education for them, which was formerly shared by schools and parents, has shifted squarely on to the parents.

“I can’t understand what is happening in schools these days,” exclaims Sanjay Seth, proprietor of a jewellery firm and father of fourteen year old Sneha, a ninth standard student in one of the prominent public schools of Delhi. “Children are easily scoring eighty to ninety percent, or even more, but they don’t seem to know much. In our time, we knew much more even though we scored between sixty and seventy percent.”

“Heaven knows what this school system is doing to our children,” agrees Keerti Pahwa, whose children, eleven and seven years old, attend one of the oldest, most renowned schools of the capital. “They are always kept with their noses to the grindstone with homework, CCE projects, umpteen kinds of assessments and weird kinds of activities all the time. And yet, their levels of learning and knowledge are ridiculous!”

“All they seem to be teaching our kids is how to surf the Internet, copy-paste stuff, print pictures and prepare highly decorated project files with no regard for the content or learning,” laments Vinita Agarwal, mother of a tenth and an eleventh standard student of one  of the fastest growing schools of the city. “How are they going to fare in the actual world if we leave them to the school system?”

This concern is echoed by virtually all parents who take a personal interest in their children’s education. Parents are mystified on what basis their children are obtaining such marks when their knowledge levels remain abysmal. The question of what their children will do once they leave school and face the real world is the stuff of nightmares for them.

Schooling versus Education

The debate about schooling versus education has been raging as long as there have been schools. A comprehensive education is more than just textbook learning. It is a cultural imperative for all individuals who aspire to be self-determining—the process of exploring various ways of thinking, doing, believing, expressing one’s self. It is the process through which one forms one’s own judgement independently. Schooling is an organized process of transmitting knowledge and values in the form of group learning. The goal of schooling is ostensibly to provide an education to the younger generations.

However, all too often, schooling ends up as a system that squashes out all individuality and creative thought. It is often seen that as children our youngsters have insatiable questions, but as they grow older, they stop asking questions. This is because most schooling is about facts and figures rather than understanding and value transmission.  It does not encourage an inquisitive mind, critical thinking, and creativity; it merely trains students to memorize and regurgitate what the teacher taught.

THE NEW SCHOOLING SYSTEM

For the past four years we have had a new education system in India, whose stated aims are to address these shortcomings of the traditional schooling systems. It emphasizes ‘continuous comprehensive evaluation’ (CCE) of a child’s everyday performance through creatively designed assignments, project work and assessments. The accent is on learning and acquiring soft skills such as comprehension, originality, communication, presentation, team work and lateral thinking. It aims to encourage our youngsters to engage with the latest technologies and developments and truly become global citizens of tomorrow.

However, four years into this experiment, we face the question: How far is this system delivering what it promises and aims at? Can it truly be called an ‘education system’? What are the concrete outcomes that it is giving our children?

Declining learning outcomes: The latest Annual Status of Education Report (ASER) document exposes sharply declining learning outcomes in Indian schools across the board. And although the report focuses primarily on rural government schools, parents as well as education professionals allege that the plight of private schools in urban centres is not much better, and with much less excuse!

Not only is the experience of a wide cross-section of parents whose children are studying in the ‘best’ private schools quite negative with regard to learning outcomes, most educated parents are dissatisfied and disgruntled with the new curriculum under the CCE system. They feel that it simply stresses presentation and bypasses the knowledge and content requirement.

Teacher troubles: Despite these findings, however, most educators continue to staunchly support the design and intent of the CCE System and feel that the failure is that of implementation at the school level.

According to Meeta W Sengupta, Senior Advisor, Center for Civil Society, one of the world’s top fifty five think tanks based in Delhi, “There are multiple problems at the teaching level. Teachers are not supported through proper training and motivation programs. Most private schools don’t even bother with teacher training (although the few that do take the trouble to train their teachers manage to produce highly competent and committed teachers). So, mostly, teachers are overwhelmed with the requirements of the new system. Failing to come to grips with it, they resort to cutting corners and rigging the outcomes.”

Eyewash Tactics: Says Seema Kapoor (name changed), a class nine science teacher in a renowned public school, “Teachers have been landed with greatly increased responsibilities of record-keeping and incessant paperwork under the CCE system, for which they have neither been trained, nor motivated. So, most of them tend to keep students occupied with useless, senseless projects to pay lip service to the system, rather than imparting skills or knowledge. The assessment pattern is also becoming increasingly ‘MCQ-oriented’, which lessens the workload of the teacher, allows students to score on the basis of lucky guesswork and greatly raises the average marks, so everybody is happy. The fact that learning is suffering in the process is another matter”.

Arbitrariness and Apple Polishing: Another problem here is that a large proportion of the students’ marks under the CCE system is subject to the arbitrary whims of teachers. Says Anmol Batra, a ninth standard student of one of Delhi’s prestigious public schools: “Our Science teachers award grades on the basis of how well a project file is decorated. They do not even bother to read what you have written or what kind of effort you have put into researching the project. One of my friends, who always has the highest score in projects, directly copy-pastes material from the Internet. He doesn’t even read what he has put in the projects. In fact, some of the stuff he gets from Wikipedia even has annotation numbers and links embedded in it, which he does not even bother to delete. But his files are the best decorated because his mom is a professional artist. So, he gets the best marks in projects.” Anmol is not the only one with this complaint. Students across schools allege that most teachers evaluate projects and assignments on the basis of decorations and favouritism, rather than content.

Moreover, the arbitrary powers teachers have been vested with is taking the practice of ‘apple polishing’ or buttering up teachers for the sake of higher scores to new and disgusting levels. Teachers themselves agree that parents and students ‘networking’ with the teachers is playing an increasing role in the results of the students.

Unethical practices: Students come up with yet more shocking revelations about the realities of the new system. The various kinds of assessments — PSA, FA, NFLAT etc which are designed to test the soft skills of students, like comprehension, listening, speaking, etc, are rigged even by the best schools. “The assessment assignments, which are supposed to be extempore, are given to students a couple of days in advance, to take home and prepare. Even the questions are provided by the teachers, along with the answers,” says Madhav Chhabra, a class eleven student. Students from other prestigious schools corroborate this allegation.

False Entitlement: Sandhya Gupta, a high school Physics teacher, is concerned that the high percentages that students are getting used to, with minimal studying, simply because the question papers have become objective to ridiculous levels, bodes ill for their future, when they come up against the rigours of higher education. “The sense of complacence and entitlement without hard work that this is fostering will also stand them in very ill stead when they enter the real world as adults and take on work responsibilities,” she worries.

RAISING EDUCATED YOUNGSTERS

These and other findings bring us up against the hard fact that if left to the current schooling system, we will end up with an entire generation of degree-holding ignoramuses who have neither the knowledge nor the skills to make a success of their lives. And so, the onus of ensuring that their children get a well-rounded, value-added education has shifted entirely to the parents. Given this necessity, parents need to find creative solutions to this problem.

Coaching classes: While in earlier times ‘coaching’ or ‘tuitions’ used to be the crutches of weak students, today they have become necessities. The slews of coaching centres errupting all over the country have become a requirement, to do what the schools are neglecting to do. While renowned coaching institutes were earlier only offering coaching to Engineering and Medical aspirants in classes eleven and twelve, some of them have started ‘foundation courses’ as early as class six, to bridge the need gap of the present schooling system.

Study groups: A creative solution devised by many parent groups is that of forming study groups where educated mothers can coach the entire groups in different subjects, according to their ability, or else, identify able teachers to do so—a variant of home schooling. This method is seen to be really effective in a number of cases.

Parent participation in school forums: Perhaps the greatest need is for parents to be more vocal at parent-teacher forums and voice their issues, forcing school authorities to take notice and address the problems.

Parents need to be especially vigilant if they want their children to become ‘educated’ in the real sense, and not just crack the system and obtain degrees which have nothing to back them by way of learning and knowledge.

Reading between the lines

(lead story in the February issue of Responsible Parenting)

The general verdict about today’s youngsters is that they are an ill-read lot. Most have atrocious language skills and would much rather spend their free time blasting monsters or doing obstacle races on their tablets or computers, or even watching inane shows on television, rather than reading a book.

And yet, despite the widespread perception that reading habits are on the decline in the younger generation, bookstores continue to sell books,  as more and more new books continue to be written. Even more importantly, with children’s and young adult literature being universally identified as the most promising market segment, the number of publishers in this area is rising exponentially.

Why, then, is there such a clamour about declining reading habits? More importantly, what is the significance of reading in a child’s life, and what can parents, educators and the community do to foster good reading habits?

Readers versus non-readers

Two mothers with opposite complaints at my writing skills workshop. The first is Smita Mathur, who is in despair because her twelve year-old daughter Rhea refuses to read anything apart from the compulsory textbooks .

“I have shelves and shelves full of books for her at home, but she won’t touch them! All my old favourites, plus any new ones that I can find. It really breaks my heart. All she and her friends ever want to do is stick their noses in their tablets or the laptop, or else watch useless shows on TV. She is good at her studies, but how will she ever become a sensible, thinking person without the reading habit?”

At the other end of the spectrum is Rashmi Chawla whose eleven year old son Taran is so addicted to books that she worries about his all-round personality development.

“I’m very happy with the fact that he reads,” she explains, “but he hardly ever does anything else! No games, no social activity. He seems to exist in his imaginary world of fictional characters.”

It is, at best, difficult to make a generalized statement about the reading tendencies of the entire younger generation. In the opinions of a cross-section of parents, educators, authors and publishers, however, apart from personal preferences, the reading habits of youngsters can be attributed to factors such as the home environment, school culture, peer groups, etc.

Why readers read

Aditya Ghosh, a fourteen year old from a family of corporate professionals and a student of one of the capital’s prestigious schools is an avid reader. Having grown up with books all around him, and having been read to as a child, books hold a prominent place in his life. On the other hand, eleven year old Ashu Pahwa’s interest in books was sparked by the culture of reading prevalent at his school. However, the school’s culture has not succeeded in converting every student into a reader.

Yet another case is that of twelve year old Pranati Rastogi. She may not have grown up surrounded by books in her average Delhi business family, in which not everyone made it to college, but she has a passion for books, as is evident from her room, overflowing with them. “I just love stories,” she says. “I used to watch movies and cartoons earlier, but after my friends introduced me to Harry Potter, I realized that movies don’t even come close to what the books give you. Now I would much rather read books than do anything else.”

Going on to children who, in their own words, are ‘allergic to books’, one common comment from them is that they have simply not come across a book that could catch their attention and hold it. This could be due to the fact that for minds addicted to being spoon-fed on flashing audio-visual signals, printed pages hold little attraction. It could also be due to the fact that the average attention span of today’s child is much shorter than it used to be in their parents’ generation.

What children want

Today children have a wide range of options in terms of entertainment. This means that for a book to hold their interest, it has to be superior to all the alternatives, namely the electronic media.

Paresh Nath, proprietor of the highly successful Delhi Press, which has a number of popular children’s magazines in its quiver, says that book sales are up simply because of increasing population. “The proportion of children reading general books—that is, anything except their compulsory course books—has definitely declined a lot.” He feels, however, that the blame lies with the confused environment in which children are growing. “Today everyone is obsessed with teaching their children English from a very early age. Both parents and schools frown upon children who speak their mother tongue. So, naturally, they are not given books in local languages to read, and they find it difficult to grapple with English, unless it is part of their home culture. So, it is only children from such homes who are reading. The rest are confused and turn to television where they can watch cartoons and international level programs dubbed in their own language.”

However, Dr. Archna Tyagi of Booklings, a Delhi-based organization that works with schools to infuse enthusiasm about reading books in growing children feels that children can be guided towards books.

“Every child whom we meet loves the colourful pictures of the stories we show and wants to read them. They are amazed with the wide variety of information available in books and want to know them all, However they lack the concentration level for reading. This is basically because they never got a devoted time of reading since a very young age, say, as toddlers, where as a parent or grandparent you introduce them to read. They lack real life examples where reading is an essential part of life and each member of the family does the same.”

“Reading has to be introduced as a daily routine where it is as important as brushing teeth,” she adds. “They need to discuss the things they have read, appreciated for the effort they have put in, exposed to the variety of books so they can choose books for themselves, however what we find is that parents are eager to provide them all material support but are clueless in providing the correct guidance. It is very natural if you take a child to a toy store he/she will be after your life to get the one they need, same is the case for reading, if you show them books or take them to a book store they will ask for the same. It is our responsibility what we want to show to them.”

Lubaina Bandukwala, a talent scout for Scholastic India agrees. “It is not that children don’t want to read. All children love stories. But they have so many other distractions today. It depends on how their parents and teachers guide them.”

Scholastic India MD Tina Narang adds, “The publishing industry is in a significantly vibrant stage with a growing number of new authors and a range of books to choose from. And standard ways of promoting a book are now being replaced by social media platforms which makes it easier for a good book to go viral and for more people to hear about it. Today’s reality is also the advent of different reading mediums. Youngsters no longer only read books as books, they also read books on different devices.”

 

Why children need to read

It is a well known fact that there are enormous mental, emotional and psychological benefits to be derived by children who form the habit of reading regularly at a young age. Says Dr. Archna Tyagi: “Good reading habits have salutary effects on the upbringing and personality development of an individual. Books open the doors of culture, knowledge, values and individuality to the reader. It enhances the capability to understand different and even complex subjects and develop opinions”.

Brain workout and increased concentration: Children who read often and widely get to exercise their brains on a regular basis. Reading is a much more complex task than, say, watching TV, as it strengthens brain connections and actually builds new connections. Further, children who read books have to sit still and quietly so they can focus on the story. If they read regularly as they grow up, they develop the ability to do this for longer and longer periods, which improves their ability to concentrate and helps them in their studies as well.

Relaxation and peace: Reading relaxes the body and calms the mind. This is an important point because these days we seem to have forgotten how to relax and especially how to be silent. The constant movement, flashing lights and noise which bombard our senses when we’re watching TV, looking at a computer or playing an electronic game are actually quite stressful for our brains. When we read, we read in silence and the black print on a white page is much less stressful for our eyes and brains.

Knowledge and insights: The kind of knowledge and insights about the world that comes from reading cannot be absorbed through the television or internet. When you are spoonfed audio-visual signals, the mind watches, but does not absorb very much. On the other hand, when the information is gained by reading a book, the mind processes it and produces its own images and connections which result in greater retention of knowledge and insights about a wide variety of topics. The children thus get greater exposure to ways of life, ideas and beliefs about the world which may be different from those which surround them and gives them vision and confidence in life.

Language and communication skills: Reading improves a child’s vocabulary, leads to more highly-developed language skills and improves the child’s ability to write well. This is because children learn new words as they read but also because they unconsciously absorb information as they read about things like how to structure sentences and how to use words and language effectively.

Imagination and empathy: When a child reads, her brain translates descriptions into pictures and forges connections with her own life and experiences. It also leads to emotional maturity and increased emotional intelligence. This stands them in good stead when dealing with problems and situations in later life.

Inculcating good reading habits

It is thus important to realize the crucial role of good reading habits in a child’s life. A few simple measures can facilitate children who like reading to find endless books, and encourage those who don’t read to explore the world of books and reap its benefits.

At home: The first thing is presence of adequate and appropriate reading material around the house. Explore your children’s preferences and look in the market for reading material to fit their tastes—be it comics, graphic novels, adventure, mystery, horror, or any other genre. Take out some time, at least over the weekends, to read books with them to sustain their interest, and discuss what they have read.

At school: Schools need to create a strong reading culture for their students. Some of the good schools in Delhi do, in fact, have systems of bonus reading points and regular reading activities. A number of schools also have class libraries in addition to the normal school library. In the class libraries children contribute interesting books from their private collections, which can then be read by anyone in class during free periods or even borrowed. A number of schools also have regular events like ‘Book Week’ and regular book fairs on parent-teacher meeting days. These measures go a long way towards encouraging students to read regularly.

In the community:  Since current Indian society does not really have a ‘library culture’ of any kind, children who like to read are often limited in terms of availability of reading material. Joint efforts towards ‘community libraries’ and ‘neighbourhood reading clubs’ could be a possible, effective solution for this constraint. At present these exist sporadically, in a few residential societies and colonies, and the response to these efforts has been discouraging so far. There needs to be greater awareness about the importance of reading and greater community efforts to provide our youngsters with safe, curated reading spaces where they can have access to vast numbers of books.

Laying the foundations

(cover story in the February issue of Responsible Parenting)

It is a well documented fact that a happy home is the foundation for a happy child. Parenting experts, the world over, say that a child’s experiences in her first years are the foundation of her intelligence, personality and emotions. Children who are raised in loving and secure homes typically thrive, whereas if they are raised in environments that are deprived of positive experiences, learning disabilities and other cognitive delays might ensue. Thus, providing an emotionally stable and stimulating environment for children that would help ensure optimal cognitive development needs to be the first priority for all thinking parents who wish to raise balanced, happy and successful children.

 

Most parents today worry about their youngsters, and even small children, who are increasingly turning aggressive, dissatisfied, ill-conditioned and insecure. Cognitive delays such as learning disabilities and lack of concentration are fast becoming the norm rather than the exception, even in affluent, well-educated households. Clearly, something is wrong somewhere.

Besides behavioural issues such as abnormal aggression, objectionable behaviour or xenophobia, the incidence of dyslexia, ADHD and other learning and cognitive disorders is sharply on the increase in our society, especially in upper middle class and affluent families. While overexposure to electronic media and unhealthy lifestyles are, to some extent, responsible for this, psychiatrists attribute this trend largely to the erosion of the secure home base and a loving environment for children to grow.

A child’s personality and behaviour is the direct outcome of her learnings from the environment in which she grows up. Thus, the importance of a happy, secure home and growing environment assumes the utmost significance to ensure happy and emotionally stable children.

In this age of overburdened lifestyles and clashing egos, the first requirement o f a happy home is a relaxed, comforting and harmonious environment replete with calmness, warmth, mutual understanding and support between its members, and a sense of security. Material comforts pale into insignificance beside the importance of love and emotional stability in fostering the child’s healthy growth and development.

Starting on the right note

A happy home, however, does not happen overnight, or by the wave of a magic wand. Yes, it does require the magic of love, understanding and support, but these are not traits that can be brought into a home just before the child arrives, along with the bassinet and the baby clothes. The atmosphere and the attitude that creates a happy home has to be fostered from a very early stage, much before the baby arrives—in fact, right from the time a couple enters married life and plans to bring a baby into the family at some future date.

Urban lifestyles today are highly demanding and depleting. Work pressures, cut-throat competition, economic uncertainty, social pressures, even the daily work commute and domestic problems—all take their toll on the stamina, vitality, and ultimately, the temperament and behaviour of those struggling with it. Is it any wonder, then, that children born and brought up in such a home atmosphere are aggressive or insecure?

In fact, it is well known that cognitive development starts before actual birth and the newborn child recognizes the parents’ voices. Child experts say that children whose parents are anxious, stressed or negative during the gestation  phase come into the world feeling unwanted and unloved, and are cranky, insecure, sickly babies who are likely to grow into problem children. On the other hand, if parents interact in a happy, positive way with the child, right from the gestation phase itself, the child comes into the world with the assurance that it is wanted and loved.

Given the state of our society today, it is all the more important for young couples to understand the importance of creating a happy and secure home environment if they wish to become parents. They need to learn how to relax in the face of work pressures, resolve their mutual differences without conflict or hostility, and make time in the middle of their busy schedules which they can devote to their children when they arrive in their lives. It is unrealistic to think—as most young parents do today—that they will work as hard as they can for the time being and make time for the child when it arrives. This simply does not happen. Unless they begin as they mean to continue, most young parents find themselves trapped in punishing schedules that they are unable to modify even after the baby arrives. As a result, the baby is struck with absentee parents, replaced by care centers or caretakers, and a home environment totally lacking in warmth, comfort or security.

A child’s bond with the parent or caretaker is one of the most important factors affecting her development. These early bonds establish a child’s attachment patterns, which affect her interactions both during childhood as well as throughout her entire life. A child who grows up with little physical contact or sense that her parents are going to meet her physical and emotional needs may grow up to be anxious, apprehensive to interact with others, or may display physical aggression. Given the importance of personal relationships on child development, parents can play an important role in their child’s growth by fostering healthy, positive interactions in all domains of the child’s life.

Parental involvement is one of the strongest influences in a child’s life that enables her to develop to her full potential. Parents need to be sensitive to their child’s needs and respond quickly. A child needs plenty of hugging, kissing and snuggling to give her the feeling of being protected and cherished. Parents need to use kind words and a warm tone with the child and provide an enriching and stimulating environment in which they engage in activities such as reading, laughing, dancing, singing and playing with their child through her vital years. According to the National Association for the Education of Young Children (NAEYC), positive stimulation from the time of birth is a crucial factor in children’s development for a lifetime.

 

Building firm foundations

Several factors contribute to the child’s development in the early years. Parents have a vital role to play by becoming an informed and active participant in their child’s life. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reports that neglect in early childhood negatively affects brain and cognitive development in the early years and has repercussions that last into adolescence and adulthood. Experiences in a child’s first years are the foundation of his intelligence, personality and emotions. When a child suffers from neglect and abuse, these experiences often lead to learning disabilities, and behavioral and mental health issues that can haunt a child for the rest of his life.

A secure and organized environment

Providing a safe, clean, calm and comforting environment is essential for the child’s development.  An environment where the child is exposed to physical or verbal abuse will negatively affect her development since stressful situations cause the body to release elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol. Extended periods of this hormone can make the brain vulnerable to processes that can destroy brain cells or lower the number of connections in the brain. Thus, unorganized homes and stressful lives that contribute to cognitive delays in their children.

So, parents need to be sensitive to the child’s needs and respond quickly. They should not hesitate to show the child affection by hugging, kissing and snuggling with her. This makes the child feels nurtured and loved and helps in her healthy development into an emotionally balanced, happy individual.

Positive and healthy stimulation

According to the World Health Organization, the amount of stimulation provided in a child’s environment can dramatically affect her brain and cognitive development. WHO states that this is especially important during the first three years of life because early childhood is the most intensive period of brain development during a person’s life. Parents need to take time out on a regular basis to do fun things with their children, such as playing board games, going for walks, picnics and other enjoyable outings, as well as watching good movies and reading together.

Proper nutrition

A child needs adequate, age-appropriate nutrition to allow her body and mind to develop properly. Fruits, veggies, whole grains, lean meats and water are all part of a well-balanced diet as the child gets older. Malnutrition due to excess of convenient junk foods, which are becoming a norm in today’s life, can lead to development issues and a failure to thrive. For this, the parents need to take a personal interest in the food habits of the family and ensure that the child is getting the right kind of nutrition. This will also make the child feel cared for and give her good habits for a lifetime.

Parental Bonding and behaviour modeling

A child’s bonds with her parents are her earliest link to life. Since the child’s very life springs from her parents, her relationship and interaction with her parents shapes her entire life patterns by establishing behavioural modes and reactions. It is thus crucial for the child to be brought up in a physically safe, mentally secure and emotionally cherishing environment to enable her to grow into a happy and stable human being.

The child also tends to take her parents as role models  and replicate their thought and behaviour patterns in her own life. For instance, a parent’s personal relationships with her spouse or friends can also affect a child’s development. If a child grows up witnessing his parents handle interpersonal conflicts through yelling, passive-aggressive comments or aggressive behaviors, she may model these interactions in her own life. Further, in situations where a child witnesses domestic violence, she may experience persistent negative effects, even if the child witnesses the violence when she is young.

On the other hand, a child who grows up in an environment of mutual support, mature and non-conflicted resolution of differences, healthy interactions between the parents as well as with the extended family and the community, he is more likely to model these positive behaviour patterns and become a happy, healthy and balanced child.

Criminal Negligence?

The murder of fourteen year-old Arushi Talwar which sent shock waves through the nation four years ago, is said to have been solved. But despite the court’s verdict finding her father guilty, the air continues to be thick with claims, counter-claims, allegations and charges. Without presuming to pass judgement on who killed Arushi, we, today’s parents, nevertheless, need to take a good look at how we are bringing up our children.

What is, to most of us, a sensational newspaper case, or a shocking tragedy, is a living nightmare for the family of the child who was found brutally murdered in her bed a day before her fourteenth birthday. Whether, as the courts believe, it was her father, who murdered her in a fit of rage, having found her in an objectionable state with the family’s live-in male servant, or whether, as the family claims, it was someone else who has not been found, some aspects of the case are indisputable.

First, Adolescent Arushi was frequently left alone in the house with Hemant, the forty five year old live-in servant for extended periods of time.

 Second, her parents’ high profile professional and social lives usually kept them out of the home till very late at night.

Third, however much the Talwars may have loved and materially pampered their daughter, their chosen lifestyle left them little time to be with their only child.

The Talwars are, by no means, the only parents in our society today who have almost no face time with their children, largely due to the compulsions of their busy professional and social lives. The numbers and proportions of such ‘absentee’ parents are rising exponentially and throwing up undesirable consequences for both, their children and for society.

Ultimate benefits to children?

One of the standard arguments in such cases is that the high incomes resulting from the parents’ high profile lifestyles ultimately benefit the children—in the form of more luxury and facilities, higher levels of material gratification, access to better opportunities, etc. What is left out of account in this kind of justifications is, ‘What is the cost borne by the children of parents with such lifestyles?’

Children left largely to their own devices as a result of their parents’ busy lives and with no responsible family member to supervise their day-to-day upbringing, are exposed to numerous destructive influences. These may come from various avenues such as objectionable content on audio-visual and print media, and undesirable company, and find fertile ground in the minds of unsupervised children of affluent parents, who have access to such material and people, but no one to guide or shape their thoughts.

The infamous ‘DPS MMS Scandal’ that painted the pages of tabloids red in December 2004, and which formed the basis of the famous movie ‘Raagini MMS’, is a case in point. Although the details of the youngsters involved were later carefully concealed in view of their age, the seventeen year old girl from one of the most prestigious schools of the capital who participated in creating a sexually explicit video clip that went viral on mobile phones, was found to be the only child of high-profile parents, who was left unsupervised at home after school, till the time her parents came home, usually late at night. Surrounded with all the luxury of material possessions, a five-star lifestyle and servants, the youngster was yet insecure enough to seek importance and attention in such an objectionable and damaging form.

It might be argued in this context that even ‘supervised’ children go wrong all the time. They do, of course, but the point here is that of the right kind of supervision, that gives a child the security of being cared for, the check of being supervised as well as the nurturing that inculcates values—a tightrope to walk, but one that comes with the territory.

What of my own life?

The other argument often adduced in the case of unsupervised children is, ‘Don’t parents have a right to a life of their own too?’

Of course, they do. However, once having exercised the choice of parenthood, it is also imperative to strike a balance between the professional, social and recreational requirements of the parents on one hand and the physical, emotional and psychological needs of the children on the other. There are numberless instances of families where both parents are working and where the children are supervised by grandparents or other loving, responsible caregivers—usually trusted family members. In such cases, the oft-quoted concept of ‘quality time’ from parents becomes an enriching experience for the children.

Smita Shivli, a young professional mother of two (eight and ten year olds) in East Delhi, drops her children at her parents’ place while going to work and picks them up on her way back. She also drops off a young maid servant to help her parents with the ‘active’ part of looking after her children. Although this entails additional demands on her time and resources, as well as putting up with periodic bouts of unreasonable behaviour from her parents or the children, she does it willingly as part of bringing her children up in a secure environment while she is away.

The catch in such arrangements, however, is that it often requires the parents to adjust to the requirements, and sometimes, demands, of the caregivers, which they are often disinclined to do. The children then end up as collateral damage in such situations.

Rekha and Naveen Bakshi prefer to drop their five and six year old children off at the most economical crèche available near their South Delhi residence, so that they can save as much money as they can. “My parents are willing to relocate to Delhi and look after the children,” says Naveen, “but we don’t want to avail that option. It will hamper our lives to have them constantly on our backs, making demands and interfering in our lives. The cost of having them here will also be much more than what we are paying to keep the children at the crèche.”

Parenting as a choice

Sometime back a cousin visited Singapore on a work related tour. Having managed to throw in a weekend, he took along his wife and two children. This was just before the era of the ‘foreign travel boom’ in India. The couple came home highly amused because the husband’s Singaporean colleagues had assumed that the couple must be millionaires several times over since they could actually ‘afford’ two kids! It was unthinkable for them that anyone would ‘opt’ for parenthood unless they were in a position to provide their children with everything their society had to offer by way of living standards and everything they had to offer by way of personal inputs.

By contrast, in Indian society, married people are ‘required’ to have children, just like owning a television set—something you do, whether or not you have the time, space or inclination for it, just so that your family and friends don’t regard you as freaks. Result?

First: innumerable kids whose parents have no time for them and no inclination to spend any thought on raising them well or providing for any except their physical and material needs.

Second: innumerable couples forced into parenthood that doesn’t come naturally to them—forced to make sacrifices they have no inclination to make, just for the sake of ‘duty towards their kids’, in turn resulting in an army of frustrated, escapist adults.

Third: needless population explosion on the planet—an ominous proportion of frustrated individuals in society.

Fourth: the most tragic—the demeaning of parenthood, one of the purest, most exalted expressions of love in the world.

Destructive social attitudes

Unfortunately, in our society, it has become the ‘done thing’ today to be dismissive of children’s emotional and psychological needs. How often has one heard callous words like: “Oh! The kid will adjust: kids are very resilient”, or, “what’s the big deal about raising the kid? It has all the facilities it needs. Get on with ‘more important stuff’”!

This destructive mindset is often manifested in workplaces too, in the form of ridicule for professional women who demonstrate caring for their children. Ashlesha Sharma, a Senior Accounts Officer in a multinational company, consistently faces barbed comments from her colleagues (usually male) because she regularly calls up her daughter –from her own mobile phone, in her lunch break—to reassure herself and give the child a feeling of being connected to her mother. This has translated into a perception that even while at work, her mind is preoccupied with her child, and so, her professional worth comes under question. Ironically, it is okay for other colleagues to blatantly use the office phones to make personal calls at all hours of the day!

Not only mothers, but caring fathers too, often come in for their share of flak. Arun and Meera Bansal (names changed), both senior economists in prestigious government institutes, have never made it to the ‘high society’ crowd, simply because returning home to their only daughter (now twenty four, and supervised by Arun’s mother during her student years) was always their priority. Having passed by all the opportunities of cosy weekend get-togethers and evenings out with colleagues, they have yet risen in their professional lives through their diligence and obvious capability, but are regarded as ‘weird’ by their co-workers who have no doubt that their professional ambitions come first and that the rest should take care of itself. “We give a damn,” says Meera happily. “We chose to become parents, and our daughter has always been our first priority.”

The latest in this saga of Indian society’s destructive mindset towards the well-being of our youngsters is the trend for ‘day-and-night creches’ in urban areas, where children of working parents can be fostered out at as young as four months, for months, and even years on end, usually to let their parents ‘get on with their lives’.

Aping the West

In childrearing perceptions, as in other things, our society has, most unfortunately, fallen prey to blindly aping trends from western countries, without first putting in place the safeguards that exist there. In western countries there exist stringently enforced laws that require parents to provide for the physical, mental and emotional needs of their children, or else, surrender them to the care of the State.  Parents who party late have responsible and trusted babysitters taking care of their children. Childcare centres too are regularly monitored by the authorities. It is the state’s ultimate responsibility to take care of the children and it puts in place and enforces stringent rules where children are encouraged to report parental infringements to the authorities.

No such measures are enforced—or indeed, exist—in Indian society to protect children from parental negligence. In such a scenario, it becomes all the more important, to propagate the concept of parenthood as a conscious choice by people who are willing and prepared to nurture and care for the children they have brought into the world till such time that they are physically as well as mentally mature enough to fend for themselves. We really don’t need any more Arushis or Ragini MMSes to shame us!

Resolving language-linked identities

One of the reasons that Indian professionals have an edge in the international job markets is their ability to communicate effectively in English, the lingua franca of today’s world, as well as the international language of business, science and technology. However, this very advantage has led to English being perceived as the language of privilege, and the ability to speak English fluently as an automatic passport into ‘high society’, both, within India and among Indians the world over. The consequent obsession among non-English-speaking Indian parents to give their children the ‘English advantage’, often drives them to try to alienate their children from their mother-tongue in a bid to ‘make them equal’. The result is a growing population of confused youngsters who are intimidated by the dragon that is English, and resentful of those who were ‘born to it’. How can parents resolve these budding cases of identity crisis which can wreak permanent damage upon fragile young minds?

A few years ago, when we moved to the United States on an expatriate assignment for my husband’s office, my then four year old suddenly stopped speaking English—a language she had grown up with along with our native language, Hindi. Homesick for her grandparents—with whom she was used to communicating in her mother tongue—and confused by the different accent (at home we spoke English with the clipped Indian-Anglicised ‘convent school’ accent—a far cry from the American drawl), she found a sense of security and identity in her native language.

However, as she found her feet in her Montessori school, among children who were mostly of Indian origin, her Hindi-speaking was productive of mixed reactions from the parents of her classmates. While most welcomed the fact that their own children had started speaking their mother-tongue to communicate with her, there were some who clearly dismissed us as ‘hicks who didn’t even bother to teach their child English before bringing her to America’. The latter, as I realized over time, were those who had not had the ‘English advantage’ while growing up, and for whom the fact that their children spoke English was literally, a very big deal. They were completely unable to see why I would let my child speak Hindi, or why so many parents were pleased with their children speaking Hindi, ‘even now that they were in America’!

The ‘English Advantage’

This mindset is not limited to expatriate Indians from non English speaking backgrounds. Within India too, especially in urban centres, this tendency is becoming increasingly pronounced. With ‘ownership of the English language’ being perceived as a hallmark of success as well as a passport into the upper echelons of society, there is literally a stampede amongst the ‘newly urbanized middle class’ to convert their offspring into English-speaking snobs who wouldn’t stoop to speak their mother tongue if their life depended on it! The glut of ‘English speaking courses’ proliferating India’s urban centres bears witness to this mania, as do the legions of confused youngsters who refuse to communicate in their mother tongue for fear of being labeled as ‘hicks’ and are unable to speak English, the language of their aspirations, with any level of confidence or competence.

Another factor that further aggravates the issue is that most such parents don’t realize that a language has to be ‘absorbed’, and not learnt by rote. So, not only do they need to start their kids early, but also to allow them a few years to learn the language at one place. Getting disenchanted with a succession of ‘coaching centres’ and shunting their kids from one centre to another only confuses the already alienated children and prevents them from getting any gain out of the whole process.

In fact, research suggests that while non-native speakers may develop fluency in a targeted language after about two years of immersion, it can actually take between five to seven years for these children to be on the same working level as their native speaking counterparts.

Justice Sumant Jindal (name changed) lives is an upmarket Delhi neighbourhood and has a ten year old son, Sushant, who attends one of the capital’s prestigious schools. The child is a good student and talented at sports and music—a source of pride and joy for any parent, you would say. Not so for Justice Sumant Jindal and his wife. The biggest sorrow of their lives is that young Sushant does not speak English fluently, in spite of all the advantages he has. “We have put him in the best school. We have also put him in so many English speaking classes and courses, one after another, but no one is able to help him,” they lament.

Justice Jindal hails from a small town in North India where he received his elementary education in the vernacular medium. Excelling at studies and achieving a position of power and prestige on the basis of sheer grit and determination, he was yet left with a feeling of inadequacy about handling English, the language of his profession and social interaction, as a second language. He wants his only child not to be similarly hampered, hence his anxiety that Sushant be at ease with English.

Nine year old Amayra Sharma, a student of the famous Julia Gabriel Academy in the last one month, has been regularly shunted from one English course to another by her anxious mother, who wants her daughter to speak English fluently despite the fact that theirs is an entirely Punjabi-speaking household. “All the courses are equally hopeless,” she says. “Even after a month in a place like Julia Gabriel’s she’s still speaking Punjabi at home!”

The Cultural Disconnect

Placing such enormous emotional premium on a language that is not part of their home environment, parents from non English speaking backgrounds are often unable to understand the kind of psychological damage they inflict on the very  children for whom they are ‘trying to get the best’.

Language is a communicative tool, related to thought and an instrument of literary expression. It is also a social institution and all human communities recognize the mother tongue as a fundamental element that identifies and shapes the personality of the child. The cultural and geographic environments in which children grow inevitably become inseparable elements of their personality. Thus, the first language is part of their personal, social and cultural identity, as well as a means of reflection and of learning social patterns of behaviour and speech.

When the mother tongue and the official and socially desirable language are the same, there is no contradiction in a child’s growing environment. Problems begin when the mother tongue is different from the official language or the language of social aspiration. Scientists believe that by about the age of seven, children acquire about 70 per cent of their environmental and natural knowledge, and thus, possess a deep understanding of the social and cultural conditions around them. Children whose mother tongue is different from the language they are required to use as they grow up feel they are entering a different world when they go to school.

If, in addition to this already fraught scenario, their mother tongue is banished from their lives—by parents wishing to give them a social leg-up, or by schools trying to mould them into the ‘English medium culture’—these children end up completely cut off from the environment in which they were born and had grown up so far. They face a new environment which is intangible to them. This absence of affinity with the new world doubles their stress because they feel cut off from their roots, adrift in a hostile world that frowns upon their accent and their very identity.

This childhood stress turns into a social problem for these children in later years and is often seen to develop into deep-seated discrimination issues that colour their social behaviour and even affect their personal lives in a negative way, turning them into oppressive, angry adults.

Parental Perceptions

For first generation English learners, the parents enter this ‘new world’ along with their children. As they witness the stresses and the socially disadvantaged status of their children, they often develop anger issues themselves. This further vitiates their children’s environment in this transformational phase of their lives, when they most need emotional stability and support at home.

My domestic helper has large aspirations for her children, Neelu, now aged twenty one and Rajan, eighteen. She and her husband have worked themselves to the bone all their lives to give their children the advantage of an ‘English medium’ private school education after their initial stint in municipal schools. The children too are extremely hard working and ambitious. However, despite their obvious capability and intelligence, they have been unable to land any but the most marginal jobs. Both good looking, well-groomed youngsters, in spite of having acquired the ‘right English accent’—thanks to television—have been repeatedly rejected at interviews for more prestigious jobs as their basic confidence issues come to the fore.

And then there are parents who have themselves experienced this phenomenon, having attended school and/or university in an environment that is far removed from their native environment and mother tongue. They themselves are among the angry people and try to vindicate their own social marginalization by raising their children according to the new world in which the children will find themselves when they grow up. They therefore engage in their own created alienation which, unfortunately, fosters misunderstandings between the generations and often results in distancing them from their children. Sushant Jindal and Amayra Sharma are classic cases in point.

Resolving the Conflict

There is no doubt that fluency in speaking and ease of understanding and writing English—the undisputed language of professional advantage the world over, and that of social advantage within most of the world’s communities—is a required skill in today’s world.

Further, balanced bilinguals perform significantly better in tasks that require flexibility and exhibit higher cognitive development and adaptability because they are more aware of the arbitrary nature of language and choose word associations based on logical rather than phonetic preferences.

However, the problem arises when children from non English speaking backgrounds are force-fed the ‘foreign language’ and alienated from their mother tongue, turning them into confused, emotionally uprooted misfits. The onus of easing their children into the second language and ensuring their healthy mental and emotional development is primarily on their parents.

Understanding the importance of mother tongue: These children, and even more importantly, their parents, need to be convinced that their mother tongue is as important in their lives as the official language that they are required to learn.

Integrating, not alienating: Parents need to get rid of their own insecurities and preconceived notions and help their children perceive English as something they need to master simply for broader social and official interaction in later life. Children who are not pressurized accept and learn new things much better. They have to be supported and helped to integrate English into their lives as an important skill, but not as something that overshadows every other aspect of their lives and alienates them from everything they have been born and grown up with.

Time and Acceptance: Expecting non-native children to master a new language, virtually overnight, is both unrealistic and unfair. Research suggests that children who have not been exposed to English at home from birth need to be given at least two years to be comfortable with it, and at least seven years to be at par with those who were ‘born to it’.

The ultimate need is to help these children develop into youngsters who can function comfortably in their academic and work environments using English, and are equally at ease in their family life and native social milieu using their mother tongues.

Value-addition

Respect, kindness, honesty, courage, perseverance, self-discipline, compassion, generosity, dependability—most parents wish to instill such values in their children, since these will protect them from potentially negative societal influences and lay the foundation for them to become good human beings. But are the high pressure lifestyles of today, with their fragmented families, locational fluidity, cultural uprootedness, and outsourced parenting taking a toll on the value systems that our children are growing up with?

Old Mrs. Bakshi’s plants are her pride and joy. About a month ago, a friend and I came across the shocking sight of nine-year-old Anshul uprooting Mrs. Bakshi’s newly planted seedlings, ignoring the old lady as she pleaded with him to stop. About to step in and bodily pluck the spoilt brat away from the poor lady’s precious plants, we saw his mother, standing nearby, watching her son’s wanton behaviour with adoring eyes. When asked why she didn’t stop her son, her reply stunned us into silence.

“Why are you making such a fuss? They’re just a few silly plants. Why should I stop my son having fun? Aren’t children more important than a few weeds?”

Seven year old Kushagra’s highly educated grandfather—an Engineer from one of the country’s topmost universities—forbade his mother to teach him table manners and basic courtesies like saying ‘please’, ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’, because “he’s a BOY. Let him grow into a MAN, not some sissy girl who has to mind her manners and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’!” The same grandfather sees nothing amiss if his darling grandson lies, cheats at tests, refuses to listen to anyone and throws tantrums at the drop of a hat. One shudders to think what kind of an adult he will grow into, moulded as he is by such destructive influences.

While it is a fact that sons are generally more indulged in this respect, there are growing instances of girls becoming spoilt brats too. Twelve year old Vidhi, from a family of educated professionals, trying out dresses at a boutique, carelessly throws the discarded ones on the dusty floor. When the shop assistant remonstrates with her, she coolly tells her to shut up. Her mother, a high ranking Government official, observes this indifferently.

There always were a certain percentage of ‘Anshuls’, ‘Kushagras’ and ‘Vidhis’ in our society, but their numbers and proportions seem to be burgeoning at alarming rates now. Kids kicking, biting, hitting and screaming in a bid to get their own way—over an ice cream, a new dress, permission to go somewhere—are growing exponentially, as are destructive, aggressive teenagers.

In fact, nowadays the minority of well-behaved, non-aggressive and sensible children are often labelled ‘supressed’ or ‘abnormal’.

 

How far are parents to blame?

Often, spoilt children are excused by parents or family members with, “They are just kids. They will grow out of it”. And you do see a number of spoilt brats growing out of it. Manish Bhatia, a terror on wheels as a child, whose exploits relatives and family friends still shudder to remember, is a hard-working, disciplined and responsible young professional in a Delhi-based financial company today, who knows how to balance work and fun in life. Another such example is twenty-three year old interior designer Akshita Ruia.

Outsourced: Both youngsters are offsprings of double income families who ended up spoilt simply because they were ‘outsourced’ kids, brought up by servants or in ‘day boarding’, with parents who were unable to give them much time and tended to overcompensate by catering to all their demands and being slack on discipline and values. Lack of monitoring of television and internet use in our media-happy world is yet another source of potential self-destruction for such kids. However, both of them were fortunate enough to find good peer groups, which enabled them to absorb life-forming values. However, all ‘outsourced’ kids are not so fortunate—there are plenty who end up completely confused in life!

Besotted: And then, there are kids who are brats because they are brought up to the creed of self-gratification to the exclusion of all else. These are usually unfortunate children whose parents and family members are besotted with them and can see no wrong in anything they do. Say social analysts, such parents and guardians have no idea how badly they are damaging their children with their blind adulation and total absence of any kind of value transmission. It is usually such children who end up as entitled, obnoxious adults—an abomination for their fellow human beings and an anathema for society. The growing trend towards violence, road rage, molestations, and even crime is, to a significant extent, an outcome of such heedless, value-less upbringing.

Smothered: Yet another type of parenting known to yield disastrous outcomes is that of ‘smothering parents’—the ones who will just not let their children be and often literally push them into rebellion, in the form of falling standards of schoolwork and objectionable behaviour. Shaista Wadhwa, a thirteen year old student in my language workshops was a puzzle. Her consistently poor performance in school tests and her brilliant mind and excellent performance with me simply did not match. A heart-to-heart talk with her mother revealed an over-anxious and smothering woman. Constantly under the pressure of her mother’s expectations and anxiety, Shaista found it impossible to perform. The objectionable and rebellious behaviour was simply a by-product of her inner turmoil. By contrast, the free and easy ‘it’s ok to make mistakes’ atmosphere in my workshops brought out her talent and calibre to the fullest.

Over the years there have been numberless ‘Shaistas’ in my workshops. I usually try to show their parents the source of the problem. Those who have understood, the way Shaista’s mother did, and managed to modify their interaction with their children, have seen them blossom, while those who have refused to see this have usually ended up either crushing their children or turning them into brats.

 

Instilling Values

It goes without saying that most parents would like to instill values like respect, kindness, honesty, courage, perseverance, self-discipline, compassion, generosity and dependability in their children—yes, even most of the besotted ones would somehow like their children to acquire these values without having to do anything about it. However, the hard fact is that teaching values takes time —and hands-on engagement!

Says Dr. Gary Hill, Ph.D., Director of Clinical Services at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, “You need to make time to be with your kids and make the time you have with them really count. Talk with them about what’s right and wrong, and what constitutes good behavior and what doesn’t.

Have these kinds of conversations with your kids on a regular basis so that the topic of values becomes a completely ‘normal’ one in your household. That way, in the future, if your children do face moral conundrums, they’re going to be more comfortable broaching the subject with you than with their peers.”

Practical measures

Psychologists and social analysts suggest various practical measures to give good values to children.

• Practice what you preach

The first thing to remember is that children will never ‘do what you say’—they will always ‘do what you do’. They learn from seeing how you treat them, overhearing your interactions with others and observing what you do in different situations throughout the day. It is simply no use teaching them honesty, integrity, perseverance and responsibility if they see the elders around them behaving differently. So, set a good example.

• Apologize when you make mistakes

A lot of teenage turmoil and rebellious behaviour is due to the fact that children expect their parents to be perfect and are disillusioned when they fall from their pedestal. If you make them see from an early age that parents are human too, much of this friction can be avoided. In this context it is important not only to acknowledge your own shortcomings, but also to apologize to your children for your mistakes. This shows them that you value and respect their thoughts, perspectives and feelings. And by doing this you are also modeling respect towards others, and accepting responsibility for your mistakes.

 

• Guide through everyday events

There is nothing that makes a child run away quicker than a planned ‘preaching’ or ‘lecture’ session. However, everyday conversations are an excellent way to weave in important life lessons. There is something almost every day that can be used as an opportunity to teach your children about values—an incident in the news, something you or your children do or observe someone else doing. These can make great on-the-spot lessons.

 

• Share personal experiences

We all have experiences in our lives that taught us valuable lessons. Share some of those stories with your children, especially ones where you made choices that upheld good values. In fact, even sharing stories where you made bad choices and had to learn some lessons the hard way are a good idea to get certain messages across. This is especially effective with older children, who may be facing similar dilemmas at the moment and might learn from your experiences.

 

• Hold them accountable for mistakes

One of the biggest blunders we tend to make as parents is trying to make things easy for our children, especially when they make mistakes. A neighbour’s broken window, a complaint note from school, a poor score in an exam—all children go through these. Our job as responsible parents is not to go and smooth things over, but to make them face the music—chores at home to pay for the broken window; a promise to the teacher not to repeat the offence; confiscation of certain privileges if bad scores persist despite promises of improvement—are just some ways that children can be made to take responsibility for their mistakes.

• No easy way out of challenges

One of the most effective ways of teaching children consistency and perseverance is to not let them give up anything halfway. This is especially important in our times, with increasing instances of children demanding privileges, such as expensive coaching in academics or sports, gym programs, dance and music classes, etc. which they give up halfway, when it gets tedious and the glamour wears off. We need to make it clear to them at the outset that once they start something, they will have to see it through to its completion, or pay a pre-decided penalty. This will encourage them to take decisions carefully, take responsibility for their decisions, and to persevere.

• Involve them in helping others

Encourage your children to help others whenever they can. This could be through simple acts of thoughtfulness such as making a get-well card for a sick friend, befriending a shy new kid at school, and helping a neighbor or elders at home. This is great training for traits like generosity, kindness, compassion and respect, as well as good experience in how satisfying it is to help others.

• Good reading versus TV and Internet

This is easier said than done in this age of audio-visual media and with the markets flooded with easy-to-read trashy books. This is where childhood training comes in. Studies show that children who have been read to or told stories as kids are much more likely to break out of bad reading and viewing habits and adopt good, character-building tastes.

• Applaud good behavior

It is human nature to crave approval, especially from parents. Children are especially vulnerable in this area. A child who receives applause for good behaviour and achievements from its parents is very unlikely to go wrong. Psychologists say that most misbehaviour is nothing more than a plea for attention.

“You need to use the time you have with your kids very wisely,” urges Dr. Hill. “Make sure you build time into your schedule for consistent, quality, face time with your kids—while they’re still kids.”

Article published in ‘Responsible Parenting’ magazine on 19th November 2013

Are we pressure cooking our children?

My first article for ‘Responsible Parening’ magazine, published in the October 2013 issue …

As access to good educational institutes and good jobs gets tougher and tougher, depression, anxiety and even suicidal tendencies in adolescent and young adults are rising at a rapid rate. How far are performance pressures responsible? Why do some youngsters thrive while others wilt in these circumstances? And what can parents do to bring out the best in their children in this scenario? The eternal debate of ‘guidance versus pressure’ rages on …

Last week a twelve year-old student from my language workshops snapped at his mother: “Why don’t you just put me in a pressure cooker and put it on the fire? Much better than being on my case all the time!”

The poor mother was aghast! She and her husband have both been high achievers since childhood, and as high-flying professionals – a surgeon and a corporate executive – they want their two highly intelligent children, twelve year old Madhav and nine year old Tanisha, to be even more successful than they are, especially since they have the means to provide them with the best facilities and opportunities.

On the other hand eleven year old Manya Sharma has her sights set high. She wants to be a successful corporate executive, and no amount of studying is too much for her. “We have never had any trouble with her,” say her parents thankfully. “She cheerfully attends all the extra classes we send her to because she feels they will help her succeed”.

Yet another instance is that of ten year old Ashmit Pahwa who is consistently one of the class toppers in studies and excels at sports. However, at the merest hint of performance pressure, he simply walks off in the opposite direction. “When his tennis coach and swimming instructor started pushing his limits because he was performing really well, he simply refused to set foot inside a tennis court or a swimming pool again,” says his mother despairingly!

Still another is the case of Sanya Agarwal, 17, who is rapidly losing her health ever since she started ‘the Board Exam Year’. “She has always been a topper in school,” says her mother Bhawana. “This year the college cut-offs were so high that all the kids are feeling very pressured.” So, what are the parents doing to help them cope with the pressure?

“What can we do?” demands Keshav Batra, a chartered accountant and father of a class 12 student Rishi. “People who have family businesses to hand over to their kids might be cool about it, but our children have to make it in life on their own. It’s a tough, competitive world out there. They have to learn to cope with the rat race. We, as parents have to keep giving them more and more pressure to keep their motivation levels high.”

Does Performance Pressure Really Translate into Motivation?

Not necessarily, say experts. In fact, it is often seen to have the opposite effect – that of making the students depressed and nervous, often with disturbing results like worsening performance, nervous breakdowns, or in extreme cases, adolescent suicides!

According to a 2008 survey report by a leading national daily, 5,857 students committed suicide in 2006 because of examination pressure. And things have got worse over time.

As per a January 2013 report by CNN-IBN, India has the highest suicide rate in the world, along with China. About 95 to 100 people commit suicide everyday, of which about 40 per cent are students, and their motive is invariably academic pressure! Data collected from 1,205 adolescents in New Delhi schools revealed that one in seven adolescents had thought about ending their lives!

Is Performance Pressure Always Negative?

Again, the answer is NOT NECESSARILY.

It is true that in most situations, stress responses cause performance to suffer. According to renowned psychologist Dr. Jerry Lynch, “Performance pressure, anxiety and tension are caused by mind-set of inflated expectations, fear of failure and an unhealthy attitude towards your competition”. A calm, rational, controlled and sensitive approach is called for in dealing with the constantly increasing load of studies, performance pressures and expectations.

Sometimes, however, the pressures and demands that may cause stress can be positive in their effect. One example of this is where sportsmen and women flood their bodies with fight-or-flight adrenaline to power an explosive performance. Another example is where deadlines are used to motivate people who seem bored or unmotivated.

In fact, one of the key questions in a recent study on performance anxiety at the Johns Hopkins Center was: Are parents’ beliefs about achievement and success always translated into feelings of pressure for their children? The answer was ‘NO’ in a surprisingly large number of cases.

The Role of Parental Expectations: Guidance or Pressure?

A study recently undertaken by the Johns Hopkins Center, USA on the topic of ‘Parents’ Values and Children’s Perceived Pressures’ states that while most people would concede that parents play an important role in their children’s achievements, the growing instances of performance anxiety in adolescents and their terrible consequences have raised questions about whether parents of high-achieving students play a negative role by pressuring their children to achieve at unrealistically high levels or to satisfy the parents’ needs.

Parents of talented children have been accused of pushing their children to achieve at exceptional levels at younger and younger ages, thus depriving them of their right to a cherished childhood, free of cares and anxieties. And this is not happening solely in academics. With the spate of TV ‘reality shows’ featuring child prodigies for the entire world to gawk at, more and more competitive parents are seen to push their own children into the limelight to showcase any real or imagined talents so that they can live vicariously through their children, basking in their reflected glory.

To get at the core of what motivates parents to ‘guide versus pressure’ their children, parents’ values and beliefs about achievement were examined, to find out how important they think high achievement is, and how they visualize academic success and achievement goals for their children.

Parents’ Perceptions and Motivations: What is Success?

According to eminent psychologists and researchers, parents’ beliefs and conceptions of academic success colour their behavior and messages to their children about achievement, and have a critical impact on whether or not their children feel pressured.

For instance, in the Johns Hopkins study, parents were asked to define academic success, and 56 percent of all parents focused only on external standards like: performance beyond their peers, or achieving socially ‘prestigious’ goals such as college admission and employment in a high-status job.

In this regard, if a child is inherently competitive and ambitious, such emphasis on external standards may have its advantages, by encouraging these students towards high performance in school since it would result in good test scores, future college admission, and ultimately, employment in a prominent career. However, for children who are quieter, more laid back by nature, this kind of excessive or exclusive focus on external indicators often translates into pressure, sending the message that academic success is important, not for personal reasons, but to please others, thus making the child anxious and miserable.

However, the other side of the coin is that though many of the parents in this study evaluated academic success by external standards, almost one-half of this group also emphasized internal standards. In other words, they also defined academic success as relative to the individual: enjoyment, setting and attaining personal goals, motivation, working towards one’s potential, being curious and inquisitive, and trying one’s best.

By emphasizing both types of standards, such parents are able to convey to their children that outstanding performance is important to success, but personal satisfaction and trying one’s best are also equally, if not more important. Such a balanced approach on the part of such sensible parents helps to alleviate a child’s feelings of pressure whenever he or she is overwhelmed by expectations and fears about the future, and helps them to perform better and be happier.

What is More Important: Learning or Performance?

Another question that assumes great importance in this context, especially in today’s environment, is that of ‘learning versus performance’.

What exactly do parents expect of their children? By what yardstick do they measure their success – success in cracking the examination systems and getting top grades and scores, whether or not they have gained knowledge in the process; or success in gaining knowledge from what they have learnt?

Parents who focus on the ‘performance goal’, i.e., those who want their children to simply achieve prestigious degrees, grades and jobs, not caring whether there is any real skill and knowledge to hold them up, are building houses in the sand. Perhaps they do not realize that devoid of real skill and knowledge they can only hobble so far on the crutch of a degree, and will fall flat sooner or later.

On the other hand, parents who emphasize the ‘learning goal’, i.e., gaining of knowledge and acquiring of real skills, whether or not their children achieve top grades initially, are building a skyscraper upon a rock. Their children usually end up becoming able and skilled individuals who find success and work satisfaction throughout their lives, even if they don’t start with a bang.

Research shows that children for whom both parents have a performance goal are highly likely to have a combination of high concern about mistakes, doubts about their actions, parental expectations, and parental criticism. Because of high parental standards and criticism, these children are likely to experience feelings of pressure.

On the other hand, if even one of the parents also focuses on understanding of material and personal improvement, it can create a balance, especially when accompanied with support and guidance, and can go a long way in preventing feelings of pressure.

In the Indian context, however, the biggest problem that arises is that more and more parents are emphasizing the ‘performance criteria’, with no regard for the ‘learning criteria’ or the personality of their children, resulting in increasing pressure on our youngsters.

Creating a Positive Environment for Good Performance

Finally, one needs to remember that all parents want the best for their children. So, what they need to do is keep a few ground rules in mind while dealing with performance issues in their children.

Creating Realistic and Positive Expectations- Expectations with regard to outcomes and results translate into tightness, tentativeness and tension, because they cannot be controlled. Therefore, it is important to focus on how to create expectations about what can be controlled. This helps a child to gain confidence in his ability to perform and to relax and let his body and mind do what they have been trained to do.

Dealing with Fear of Failure: Children need to be taught from an early age to accept that failure is inevitable from time to time. The first step towards this would be not to overreact when a child fails or makes mistakes, because one of the essential qualities of a champion is the ability to tolerate failure. An old Zen saying teaches us “the arrow that hits the bull’s eye is the result of one hundred misses.”

Taking the Wide Angle Approach or Exploring Other Avenues: Let us not forget that we are fortunate to be raising our children in a world that offers scope for success in a wide multitude of areas. So what if a doctor’s child wants to be a musician or a professor’s child has a talent for photography? Let your child discover his true potential and encourage him to excel at whatever he does best.

Prioritizing Welfare and Happiness over Material Achievement: And let us not forget that as a parent, a child’s ultimate welfare and happiness is what is most important. Parents need to keep this ‘big picture’ in mind and guide their children to the best of their ability, while steering clear of the traps of negative performance pressures.

Toddler Needs

This is something I’ve wanted to express for a long time. I found this article on social media and realized that I couldn’t say it better than this. It’s written by a pre-school teacher and says it all…

I was on a parenting bulletin board recently and read a post by a mother who was worried that her 4 1/2 year old did not know enough. “What should a 4 year old know?” she asked.
Most of the answers left me not only saddened but pretty soundly annoyed. One mom posted a laundry list of all of the things her son knew. Counting to 100, planets, how to write his first and last name, and on and on. Others chimed in with how much more their children already knew, some who were only three. A few posted URL’s to lists of what each age should know. The fewest yet said that each child develops at his own pace and not to worry.
It bothered me greatly to see these mothers responding to a worried mom by adding to her concern, with lists of all the things their children could do that hers couldn’t. We are such a competitive culture that even our pre-schoolers have become trophies and bragging rights. Childhood shouldn’t be a race.
So here, I offer my list of what a 4 year old should know.
She should know that she is loved wholly and unconditionally, all of the time.
He should know that he is safe and he should know how to keep himself safe in public, with others, and in varied situations. He should know that he can trust his instincts about people and that he never has to do something that doesn’t feel right, no matter who is asking. He should know his personal rights and that his family will back them up.
She should know how to laugh, act silly, be goofy and use her imagination. She should know that it is always okay to paint the sky orange and give cats 6 legs.
He should know his own interests and be encouraged to follow them. If he could care less about learning his numbers, his parents should realize he’ll learn them accidentally soon enough and let him immerse himself instead in rocket ships, drawing, dinosaurs or playing in the mud.
She should know that the world is magical and that so is she. She should know that she’s wonderful, brilliant, creative, compassionate and marvellous. She should know that it’s just as worthy to spend the day outside making daisy chains, mud pies and fairy houses as it is to practice phonics. Scratch that– way more worthy.
But more important, here’s what parents need to know.
That every child learns to walk, talk, read and do algebra at his own pace and that it will have no bearing on how well he walks, talks, reads or does algebra.
That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.
That being the smartest or most accomplished kid in class has never had any bearing on being the happiest. We are so caught up in trying to give our children “advantages” that we’re giving them lives as multi-tasked and stressful as ours. One of the biggest advantages we can give our children is a simple, carefree childhood.
That our children deserve to be surrounded by books, nature, art supplies and the freedom to explore them. Most of us could get rid of 90% of our children’s toys and they wouldn’t be missed, but some things are important– building toys like lego and blocks, creative toys like all types of art materials (good stuff), musical instruments (real ones and multicultural ones), dress up clothes and books, books, books. (Incidentally, much of this can be picked up quite cheaply at thrift shops.) They need to have the freedom to explore with these things too– to play with scoops of dried beans in the high chair (supervised, of course), to knead bread and make messes, to use paint and play dough and glitter at the kitchen table while we make supper even though it gets everywhere, to have a spot in the yard where it’s absolutely fine to dig up all the grass and make a mud pit.
That our children need more of us. We have become so good at saying that we need to take care of ourselves that some of us have used it as an excuse to have the rest of the world take care of our kids. Yes, we all need undisturbed baths, time with friends, sanity breaks and an occasional life outside of parenthood. But we live in a time when parenting magazines recommend trying to commit to 10 minutes a day with each child and scheduling one Saturday a month as family day. That’s not okay! Our children don’t need Nintendos, computers, after school activities, ballet lessons, play groups and soccer practice nearly as much as they need US. They need fathers who sit and listen to their days, mothers who join in and make crafts with them, parents who take the time to read them stories and act like idiots with them. They need us to take walks with them and not mind the .1 MPH pace of a toddler on a spring night. They deserve to help us make supper even though it takes twice as long and makes it twice as much work. They deserve to know that they’re a priority for us and that we truly love to be with them.

Misfit

Sleep light years away from my eyes;

Mom and Dad talk far into the night;

It’s the run-up to R-Day (Report Card, not Republic)

And the truth of my ‘performance’ will come to light.

*******

Whatever my scores, they’ll never be enough:

There’ll always be someone who’s managed ‘more’.

Once again, I’ll shame them in their social circuit:

A blot on their lives that they have to endure.

********

I don’t give a hoot for the ‘coveted’ professions,

For gilt-edged ‘packages’, or the corporate ladder;

I’m a dreamer, a thinker, a freedom-seeking soul,

But telling them this only makes them madder.

*********

Mom, Dad! I don’t want to live off you!

My own path in life I wish to discover;

It might not be what you dreamt for me,

But I wish you’d have faith and support my endeavour.

*********

I know you’re only trying to protect me,

You feel I might regret my choices some day;

But you’re trying to live my life for me:

I wish you’d trust me to live it my way.

*********

Wouldn’t it be better to regret my own choices

Than resent the ones you forced on me?

Don’t you think all of us would be much happier

If you could just accept me, and let me be?

**********

Keeping our children safe

This was originally published on the blog for CSA (child sexual abuse) Awareness in April 2011.

The newspapers are often full of horrendous stories of young children who suffer severe physical, mental and emotional injuries, or even die as a result of sexual assault while the parents keep the incidents under wraps, sometimes because the perpetrator is a family member/ friend, and often out of a misplaced sense of ‘shame’. According to statistics released by Tulir Centre for Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA), 40 per cent girls and 25 per cent boys below 16 in India are victims of such predators. The Bill against CSA, currently in Parliament, provides for stringent punitive action against perpetrators of CSA as well as for the protection of the identities of the victims and their families. However, the fact remains that CSA is one of the most terrible, yet least acknowledged horrors of our society.

Paedophilia or sexual abuse of children—a parent’s worst nightmare— is hardly something unknown. The mental disorder that drives adults or almost-adults to sexual abuse of pre-pubescent children has existed throughout recorded history of humankind. However, even more horrifying than the vile acts of paedophiles, is the fact that in an unbelievably large number of cases of child sexual abuse (CSA), the victims’ family members, whose responsibility it supposedly is to safeguard them, either choose to look the other way, as though wishing away the unpalatable truth, or else, sweep it under the carpet out of considerations of ‘family’ or ‘honour’. But the fact remains that children who have been victims of sexual abuse end up with serious psychological issues related to self-esteem, self-image and confidence which, if not addressed promptly, become a baggage that they carry all their lives and are liable to taint all their relationships, rendering them dysfunctional, asocial, or even anti-social.

Threat from ‘near ones’

In an alarming number of instances the perpetrators of these heinous acts are either close family members or family friends. A case that comes to mind is that of a neighbour’s extremely aggressive and rebellious young niece, who was openly contemptuous of her parents. She was later discovered to have been raped repeatedly by her uncle (father’s brother) when she was less than five. Her parents had refused to believe her, choosing to ignore the entire incident and warning her to be careful, rather than open the can of worms within the family, especially since the girl was too young for ‘visible’ consequences like an accidental pregnancy. Warped for life, the abused girl started wielding her sexuality like a tool while in her early teens, perversely going out of her way to shame her parents publicly. As she grew into an adult, it became obvious that she could neither sustain a job nor a relationship. Then at about 30 years of age she was involved in a serious road accident that crippled her for six months. Lying in bed with nothing to do, she was visited by an old neighbour who initiated her into an alternate healing therapy. That was a turning point in her life. After she was cured, she left home to work as a healing therapist and has exorcised her own demons in the process.

When protectors turn predators

There was also the case of an ex-colleague who left her home in one of India’s interior towns with her two daughters at a moment’s notice when her maid alerted her to the fact her husband was trying to sexually abuse their 12 year-old elder daughter, thinking that she had gone to the market. Landing in Delhi with nothing but an airbag of clothes for all three, some of her mother’s jewelry and the phone number of an old school friend—who, along with her husband, miraculously came through for her—she eked out a living for herself and her daughters as a journalist for years, cutting herself off from her family as well as his, because if word of this were to get around, the shame to the family would mean that no one in their caste and community would marry her daughters! This was 20 years ago. Today both her daughters are married and well settled and she has become a nun in a convent. No one in the family has any idea of all this, even to date!

Harmful helping hands

Another common source of CSA is household help. With the number of double income families on the rise, it is very common for young children to be left in the care of hired help, sometimes (though not always) under the supervision of older family members. And although there have been instances of extremely caring and loyal caregivers, there are also plenty of cases where the child has been abused, either by the caregiver, or by the boyfriend of the female caregiver who visits her in the absence of the child’s parents.

Newly-wed Bela’s sister-in-law (husband’s sister) used to leave her 15 month-old daughter with her mother (Bela’s mother-in-law) on her way to work every morning and collect her on her way back home every evening. A 14 year-old male servant used to help the arthritic mother-in-law with childcare tasks like heating the baby’s milk, fetching and carrying, etc since both Bela and the child’s mother were at work during the day. As the baby grew older and more active and unmanageable for the grandmother, she relegated more and more of her tasks to the servant, such as rocking her to sleep and pacing with her whenever she was restless. Soon she let him take her out. It was Bela who saw something amiss and alerted her mother-in-law, who chose to turn a blind eye to the matter, realizing that she would have to stretch herself beyond her physical capacity to take care of the child herself. Next Bela alerted the child’s mother, but she too chose to ignore the matter, since to take remedial action would have disrupted her well-ordered professional life. She then broached the matter with her husband. He was snubbed when he discussed it with his mother and sister, but deeply disturbed, he fired the servant immediately. The child is now sixteen, and a lovely, confident young lady, and hopefully, has no memory of theseincidents of her infancy.

Prevention and pre-emption

The menace of CSA is a reality that cannot be denied. It is high time we face it head-on and take preventive measures, the most important one being educating our children and building enough trust and rapport with them to enable them to share their darkest secrets with their parents. Innumerable cases of CSA go undetected, even by the victims’ parents and near ones, because some atavistic instinct of shame or fear impels them to keep the secret, even though it is something that they don’t understand.

A few years ago I noticed that my seven year-old daughter winced as I changed her underpants. Filled with foreboding, I questioned her gently. Hesitating, she said that for the past two days a ten year-old boy in her school van would push apart the legs of the six and seven year-old girls in the van and prod them with his boot. I was filled with a murderous rage as I heard my baby stammer out this atrocity, but controlled my own reactions. I asked her if this had been going on longer than the past two days. She denied it, and I believed her because it was the first time that she had shown such signs of discomfort. When I asked why she and the other little girls did not scream or complain to the driver or the teachers in the van (there were two of them!), she said they had protested and complained, but that no one had paid any attention. Deeply disturbed and upset, I pondered over the best way to handle this, fully aware that the situation called for immediate action. After a lot of thought I decided to confront the situation head-on.

Next morning I requested the teachers in the van and the driver to give me two minutes and told them the entire story. I demanded the telephone number of the offender’s parents from the van driver, preferring to take the matter to them. I then politely asked the teachers what they were about to let such things happen while they were present in the van. The teachers looked sheepish and admitted that they thought that the little girls had been screaming and complaining because one of the boys must have been bullying them, as usual. The van driver was mortified, and apologized, and although he did not then give me the numbers I asked for, he promised to personally inform the child’s parents of this incident and to discontinue his usage of the van with immediate effect. He was as good as his word. I did, however, inform the parents of the other little girls in the van about the incident so that they would be on their guard in future. And as it chances, my daughter took no harm from the incident, but has now, hopefully, been warned for life against objectionable behaviour by anyone.

CSA is a social disease that needs to be dealt with the pesticide of exposure, education and prevention. More important than anything else is the need to divest it of its aura of shame and secrecy, and bring it out in the open, to be understood and condemned by society at large, while extending understanding and help to the unfortunate victims, so that parents take proactive measures to help their children instead of turning their ‘shameful secret’ into skeletons in the cupboard.