Four Clover Life- By Namrata Shailendra Singh

Are you carrying a piece of excess baggage and offloading it to your child? The burden of your unfulfilled dreams, the blame for your failures, the strain of your unmet expectations, and anxiety of your poor self-esteem ...is it fair to put them all on your child and label it - I am an ambitious parent.   OR The grandeur of your success, the magnificence of your achievements, the loftiness of your fame and glory, the constant praise of your hard work and intellect- Is it fair to assume and expect a similar destiny for him? You couldn't do it, so you want your child to do it now. Fair or Unfair? or You did it, and so you want your child to do it. Fair/Unfair? We all have big expectations from our children. Haven't we heard conversations like- “ I couldn’t do much in my life. My circumstances were such. But I want my son to do now.” or “I have earned this success and fame for myself. I want my son to do the same.” or “I couldn’t le

So, you did it again? You compared your child to his friends, his sibling, and the icing on the cake- you compared him with your own self at that age as if you were the best gift to humankind then. Really? Were you? Our parents did to us; their parents did to them. Now we, the educated generation a-z (whichever alphabetical generation we belong to never got that logic, though), the pseudo ‘KOOL’ parent do it too. This time it’s well wrapped, sugar-coated, and sophisticatedly used. The dialogue has changed from- “ Dekho Pandey ji ke beta ko. Kuch samajh mein aata hai? Dekho kahan se kahan pahunch gaya aur ek tum ho ki bas khel khel. Zara seekho kuch. Sab kuch to kar rahe hain tumhare liye, phir bhi … ” Said in the rawest form…so thorny that it actually pricked the heart. (Look at Mr. Pandey's son. Do you understand? See his accomplishments and look at where you are? We are doing everything for you, but you are such a wastrel.) Look at how we have polished our words now- “I see you a

A CONVERSATION WITH SOMEBODY I am N ….Naina Thakur and this is my story. Not only mine but also yours. You are as chained as I am, handcuffed and shackled...and this conversation is as important to you as it is to me.  N- Hey Hi. Somebody- Hi, you are talking to me? N- Ya. May I know your name, please? Somebody- aha! My name? N- Yeah! I have been following you for 36 years and I still don't know who you are. Today I saw you, again, and thought of asking. I went asking my grandfather who is 88 and he seemed to be clueless. Somebody- He didn't know? That's strange. I thought by 88 you become wise enough to know pretty much everything. N- O common. Don't beat around the bush. Just tell me who you are? Somebody- Why don't you go and ask your mum or dad? N- My mum?   Well, yeah, I remember she was the one who spoke about you. Yes, I remember. I have heard her talk about you often. In fact, she is the one who introduced

I am an advocate of appreciation. We were brought up at different times. Parents were more critical, and appreciation of any kind was hard to come by. Even if they did it had a hyperlink attached- “ हाँ ठीक है , अब ज्यादा उड़ने की जरूरत नहीं . आगे भी अच्छा करते रहना है ”. (It’s OK...you don't need to fly so much. You have to keep doing well.') The tone in which this dialogue was delivere was confusing to us- ' ये क्या था ? "What was that? Are they happy or not happy?" The inflated self-esteem went whoosh as we were thrown back to the ground. It's different now. We, as parents, indulge in appreciation. A small or big act of achievement or even just the effort. We laud our children with ‘GOOD JOB’ as often as possible. Yes! The hypothesis has changed today. The more you appreciate, the better it is. All kinds of research going around to prove how appreciation is linked to better grades, better behavior, and better performance acad

Preschooler, Elementary school going child, middle school children or high school teenagers---------It really doesn't matter. Lying happens-To us and to them. THE PRESCHOOLERS The issue of moral development in children extensively researches in the field of Child psychology. It's natural for you to feel upset when you find your preschooler lying to us. You think that it reflects poorly and that you are not bringing him up the right way. But do you need to get distressed over your child’s ‘truthfulness’ yet? No. It’s too early. BUT Imagination- ----You have to differentiate between his actual lying and his fantasy. For example- My son often cooks up these stories about how a dinosaur came to his class and all his friends fought them. Many such stories I hear every day, from bugs to cockroaches to lions to dinosaurs. I am glad his imagination is doing the job well. Preschoolers observe the world around them keenly, and ‘creative play,’ ‘pretend and play,’ ‘ima

I wonder if Indians smooch? They do? Really? Have they always smooched or it is some new found sexual angle? Oh, forget it! How does it matter? With our population, nothing matters. I had an idea about smooching back in school- the year 1996. You know how Chinese whisper works. When it came to ‘smooching’ what came to me was something to do with the tongue and esophagus. The implementation happened 15 years later in the most unsophisticated, an ‘atrangi’ and unhygienic way. For a middle-class Indian who is raised with the mantra- ‘ jootha nahi khate ’, smooching = sin. Unsanitary sin. Forget it! I am not a fan of a smooch. But what if my kid is? The thing is that the biological clock and the academic clock are in direct conflict when you enter your teens or hit puberty. Just when the world is putting the right kind of pressure on you to go to Stanford, your mind is solving calculus equations, your body is doing its own weird calculation...size? Inches? Bang