Parents to a New Generation

The woman sitting in the front row with very long hair shared a thought that often crossed me too several times in a day, ‘We need better skills than what our mothers needed because children these days are different.’I was thinking to myself if our mothers had ever worried about their competence too.

The quietest in the group wanted an answer, ‘How do I continue playing referee to two of my children- why do they behave like this?’ Instantly, I had flashbacks of my own mother dealing with a bunch of three warring kids at home.

The questions didn’t stop there but this one in particular caught my attention, ‘My daughter thinks I know nothing because I am a home maker and looks up to her father only. Can I ever get to build trust and respect for me?’ I stopped myself from relating to these conversations with respect to memories of my childhood and attempted to look at these urban women who sat around me to understand if mothers had changed in this new generation.

The workshop had been organized byMums and Storiesin partnership with Banjara Academy to throw light on parenting skills for handling teenage children; bringing together the two strengths of two diverse initiatives. While Dr. Ali Khwaja’s academy brought in expertise on professional counseling and life skill education particularly for empowering children and parents, Mums and Stories brought in its experience of working with mums and giving women an effective platform for intellectual discourse.

I curiously waited to find out from the many interactions if times had changed and children had changed with it, (we) women had changed and needed new orientation afresh on their roles, or if we had just gotten used to exercises like these that involved reaching out for solutions and advice and finding them!

I learnt new things. I acquired a new perspective on parenting, the phases a child has to go through before transitioning into a beautiful adult, the mistakes we make as parents to delay that transitioning and the right things we still could do.This was evidently different from parenting styles that involved rules, strictness, punishments, exhibiting anger and using intimidation and involved much more preparation, soul-searching and working on our limitations than ever before.

I learnt how few people who cross the age of 19 could still remain stuck in adolescence even in middle age because adolescence is not about hitting a particular age in your life cycle but a phase that involves mental and emotional capacity of the person. Unless the person attains understanding on direction in life, on relationships and on sexuality the person is unable to transition into an adult. The role of a parent is to help their children to acquire that understanding on direction, relationships and sexuality by just offering their experiences and thoughts and their children would do the rest.

How many of us use opportunities like visiting a bank with our child to expose them to a possible career in banking, tell them how it is to work in a bank, what kind of subjects are to be taken in school for this kind of job, what kind of skills are required, the benefits and demerits of this career? How many of us talk to our children when we go to a hospital and offer them a possible aspiration of being in health care? Do we even know what kind of academic choices need to be made and at what phases?

With such little support from parents and mums, we still crib about their grades, why they never study as much as they should, their lack of motivation and absence of ‘direction in life’.

With such little support from parents and mums, we still crib about their grades, why they never study as much as they should, their lack of motivation and absence of ‘direction in life’.

A single mum was concerned on how her children were unaware of the nature of marital relationships because of absence of any exposure to one; a mum with two children who fought daily was concerned about her inability to create love between them; another mum who was a widow wanted to build confidence in her child who had seen way too many hardships to be confident naturally.

The most amusing time in the day was the discussion on sexuality and parents who remained uncomfortable with the mere thought of dealing with that. Parents of the opposite sex stop cuddling and touching children at the onset of adolescence because they believe this is the right thing to do when in fact, a growing girl who receives physical touch like a hug from her father and a boy from her mother helps children to understand that not all relationships with individuals of the opposite sex are sexual but they can be platonic too.

All the participants received guidance tailor-made to their own context. The single mum was advised to work on demonstrating successful marital relationships to her children using examples from people known to them and building confidence in children to secure one such relationship for themselves; the mum with children who were always at ‘lock horns’ was made to understand that sibling rivalry did not stem from animosity towards their sibling but from want of attention from the parent and constant reassurance of her love would successfully end the home battles and the widow mum was told to reflect confidence herself and not overdo sharing her own fears with her children to see them grow into confident adults.

It started drizzling outside and Bangalore has been turning cool at 23 degrees centigrade. At the end many of us walked up to the resource person to share pleasantries. I had a quick word with Reshma Krishnamurthy, the lady behind this initiative who turned her experience in motherhood and journalism to build multiple platforms for other mums.

Reshma revealed why it was important for Mums and Stories to do a parenting workshop, ‘Every time I would read a story on a teenager having committed suicide or into depression, it would bother me. Dr. Ali Khwaja’sBanjara Academy has been empowering others through counseling from last two decades. We wanted to associate with like-minded organizations to create an impact.’

A journalist, a counselor, a story-telling platform to celebrate mums and their journeys and a professional life skill education agency partnered today to help individuals to parent a new generation.

I want to walk away with words from David Bly that say, ‘Your children will become what you are; so be what you want them to be’.

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By Urmila Chanam

This article was originally published in the Imphal Free Press, an English daily from Manipur in northeast India

Link:

http://ifp.co.in/page/items/35110/parents-to-a-new-generation#.WAwZSjzjT...