“Two straight lines never meet” explained the Math teacher. “ok, so what?” murmured Shaina to her friends’ group. They all grinned & tried hard not to laugh & get caught by the teacher.

 “The shortest distance between two points is a straight line” teacher continued. “Ok, Does that help me? Can I go to washroom in a straight line, NO, so what difference does it make to me..” retorted Shaina

“Every action has an equal and opposite reaction” described her Physics sir. “Of course, not” muttered Shaina. “You are teaching but nothing is going in our minds, so there is no reaction for your actions” she enlightened her friends to their amusement.

Her tricks continued & her words and mockery continued to disrupt the class. She not only gave a tough time to teachers and parents, but she also got more disillusioned with her studies. The main challenge for her, you see was that she found studies boring and not fun enough to get her interested. She explained to everyone that at her age she is supposed to be just having fun and nothing else. She couldn’t understand why all the elder people around her missed the main concept of including fun in everything child centric.  There was so much fun all around her, but she wondered why this was not included in a student’s daily life. She resolved that when she grew up, she would change things around for kids as she knew their pain.

Shaina grew up, had a great career and after some years married and moved ahead in life. She was blessed with a beautiful family and everything was perfect. As she strived for perfection in every task/role, she didn’t think twice before taking career breaks from Fortune 500 companies that she worked for to raise her kids. She was very keen to spend quality time with her children, raise well rounded kids and impart life skills to them which was incidentally her job as a trainer.

Everything in the above story is true except that Shaina’s real name was Shazia, which is me and I had no idea that I was in for a big surprise. Raising my one-year old son Farhaan turned out to be a big roller coaster ride for me as he gave me a very hard time for everything small and big. For example:

1.     He hated to brush. So, I was advised to start brushing with him so that he would copy me but instead of copying me he gave away his mickey brush to me & left quietly☹ 

2.     He managed to wriggle out from his high chair whenever I offered a colourful, well curated & decorated balanced diet in his food tray

3.     When I read out to him or taught him something, he just turned his back without showing any interest.

4.    It was a struggle to even make him shower, wear a slipper, put him to sleep, engage him in activities and so on and so forth.

Office work looked quite simple to me now. I was adroit in training adults, parents and educators on life skills and here I was, struggling to make sense of my one yr. old sons’ antics. He was able to push all my buttons and I knew that I was certainly missing something. I cried, complained & felt that I was waging a losing battle.

One day, I shut myself up and thought hard as to what was amiss. I was sure I could use one of the life skills that I have been advocating and I tried picking up ‘Empathy’. I just put myself in my sons’ soul and questioned myself, ‘if I were a kid, would I enjoy these simple chores? What was that I really longed as a kid?’.

Suddenly, the bygone days flashed back in my memory. Was it not me who had been a bully to my parents and teachers alike. Was it not me who forced them to add fun to the routine stuff. Wait, I had even resolved to change things around for kids and make it all fun and here I was, a typical mom afflicted by parenting syndrome. Almighty alas enlightened me with the wisdom that my son had the same genes as ME and he was in no way different. He was challenging me to make things fun and interesting for him, the same way I used to challenge everyone around me as a kid. Ohh, ghosh, it was not my son but ME who needed a crash course on creativity and empathy!!!

I then tried adopting novel, fun and creative ways to make my son do routine chores. Creativity is inventing, experimenting, growing, taking risks, breaking rules, making mistakes, and having fun after all. And I tried to make each task so engaging and fun that Farhaan saw a friend in me and not a grudging parent.

I changed my strategy...

1.     I raced with him to the bathroom for brushing, I sang the song “This is the way we brush our teeth, brush our teeth.”

2.     I blind folded him to wear the correct slipper and he was more than happy to find the right slipper.

3.     I let him ask me questions instead of teaching him and I could see that he learnt more when he was in charge of teaching. And so, on and so forth.

I realized that kids are loud, messy, intense & not well behaved. And that’s how kids are supposed to be. They will always try to test what their limits are & our job is to let them explore these boundaries safely. It’s hard because they will press all our buttons but again where we not the same as kids? Don’t we all see so much of ourselves in our children. So now when he has a meltdown, instead of saying “just stop it”, “Enough of it”, I would say, “I need a hug right now” and hug him tightly and say “Its ok, just breathe, breathe” so that he feels the quality of my presence. No doubt it is said "The kids who need the love most, will ask for it in the most unloving ways”.

After all, what does children need?? All they need is acceptance, love and fun. Is that too much to ask for? Are they not the most vulnerable beings and look up to us to learn the nuances of life. And if kids can’t learn the way we teach, why not teach them the way they learn?

It is ironical that Kids make us strong and we don’t teach them, but they teach us. And the greatest legacy that we can pass to our next generation is to regulate & to be calm during a storm. Because we are responsible for the kind of world that we will be creating for them. Our priority then should be to first fix our personal issues so that there is a less chance of transferring it to our next generation. Whom do you think then lies the onus of creating well rounded human beings and our next generation of thought leaders? Yes, most definitely it is with each one of one us!!!