Articles written for Kellogg's Khuljaye Bachpan series

HomeWork: Who Really Wants It After All?

Winters arrive and it’s time for vacations at school. The next important thing for the kids is to pack their bags for a holiday visit at grandmother’s house or a family trip to a holiday destination. This is how we have spent our childhood; it holds true for the next generations also. The kid, who doesn’t go anywhere and stays back home, is usually the one with the expression as if they are not doing anything worthwhile. But, gone are those days when life of a kid used to be lonely or futile without school or friends or vacation trips. These days, there are so many different kinds of games, experiments, nature camps, amusement parks, and books available for kids. In fact, somewhere their lives have become like ours: We, the adults, are constantly looking for some break to do something of our own passion and interest. 

Surprisingly, time is very limited not only for us but also for our children. There’s so much to know, so much to learn, so much to explore - yet our daily routines allow us to just meet the basic minimum, which has been defined as most important by the society and the system. And interestingly, there is an ironical dimension added to this situation, not self-imposed but imposed by my generation of parents. While we ourselves regret and feel sad for not being able to have the opportunity to pursue our likes, a major section of our group is hung up on spoiling it for their kids too. 

Every year, just before the onset of the winter vacations in schools, I see around and wonder at a few mothers, complaining in front of their children how the little ones are going to make life difficult at home during holidays. Their attitude indicates as if the house belongs to just them and the children are intruders. There is another breed of parents: they are voraciously looking for homework for their children and asking all the teachers and tutors to swamp up their kids with homework, so every minute of their kid’s vacation is utilised (so-called utilised). These are parents, who believe in the theory that their kids learn only when their heads are glued to books and learning is directed by someone in authority outside of the home. They often make the following comment to teachers: “If I say, they will not listen. You ask them to ensure they finish the homework and study daily, then they will do it.” I am shocked at the desperation of parents, searching for control and support from other fronts to gratify an undefined satisfaction. 

I guess these parents either don’t believe in or are not aware of self-directed learning as well as the learning that may happen out-of-academics. This kind of control-freak parents recently roused my curiosity and I started to speculate and observe them further only to discover the following things: 

1. They themselves have never been exposed to anything out of their school academics as part of learning

2. They are too disinterested to give time to their kids when they are at home and reduce their guilt feeling by watching their kids do some organised and planned activity, like homework, given by someone else they can trust but allows them to make no effort themselves.

3. They don’t believe that kids have a natural flair to engage in constructive work when they are guided, initiated into something or given the right set of materials.

4. They believe that their kids are not smart enough to get concepts through classroom study and test preparations but need homework to revise the concepts all over again. 

While it is true that not every kid is equally smart or intelligent, academic smartness and intelligence anyway cannot guarantee success in life either. So, the only thing we can inculcate at an early age is their interest and approach to education. If they are given the environment and circumstances to satisfy their curiosity through learning and experiments, they will enjoy education. However, if we impose studies on them as an intrusion into their world of creativity and dreams against their will, mood, or inclination even in the spare time, we will take away their interest from academics not only for the time being but for the entire life as a whole. Childhood should be characterized by fun and enjoyment in whatever children do. As Monica Pellerin preaches, “I say give kids a break … Let the kids enjoy life before life gets too tough.”

To offer the child something different definitely requires some investment from us also - of time and money. There are various things we can do to help ourselves and our kids spend vacations fruitfully as well as enjoyably. We can enrol them for some classes of their interest during this period. We can go out for shopping with them and buy books of their interest and encourage them to finish them within the vacations. We can strategically invest in activity toys, science toys (like solar kits, young scientist kits), and introduce them to board games. Of course, we need to be their guide and mentor in most of these undertakings. 

Not every vacation for me has been marked by a trip. But, I manage to make our vacations creative and memorable for us by stealing these opportunities to bond with my son. We try out various ways to learn through first-hand experiences, interactions, reading about a variety of topics, making one day trips in and around the city and, most significantly, experimenting and building things with the help of different science and activity toy kits. These pursuits give my child out-of-the-box experiences while he can have fun, enjoy, learn, and explore. His creativity gets unlocked and I also learn in the process of helping him. We fail at times, but we laugh it off. But, when we succeed, we celebrate with a quick small treat of ice-cream or chocolate. I have my moments of #Khuljaye Bachpan with my kid and I really don’t need his time to be utilised within a specific framework against his will. As the great scholar Plato said, “Do not train a child to learn by force or harshness; but direct them to it by what amuses their minds, so that you may be better able to discover with accuracy the peculiar bent of the genius of each."

P.C.: layzeebee.com

#Khuljaye Bachpan

Winters: A Warm Welcome Or The Worrisome Weather

Winters are chilly and cold, so they are marked by our need for coziness and warmth. To beat the chill outside, the warmth of the hearth is what generations after generations have found comfort in. I always look forward to winters as it allows my entire family to have more of home-time and togetherness, be it watching a movie from the cozy sofa or reading out a book to my son wrapped up in a blanket on the bed. 

While reading is a universal act, not restricted by time or season, reading out a book in chilly winters, wrapped in warm clothes and tucked up inside a warm blanket has its own fun. And the choice of stories also need to match up with the mood. It may not be particularly interesting to read a story about picnics, trekking, outdoor sports, etc. in that mood. So, I deliberately pick up stories revolving around Christmas or those that are set up against a backdrop of hilly places, like the stories of Ruskin Bond. The act of reading and listening to such stories also gives my son and me the opportunity of discussing our experiences and how our lives are different or similar to the characters in the books. 

Winters also mark the advent of a wide variety in the choice of vegetables and a wider spread in the meals. So, it is also the best time to let my little one help identify even the rarest of vegetables, involve him in the process of preparation of those, and offer him those to savour new tastes. And, the more involved he is in the entire process of cooking, the better he is at relishing the final product. 

Winters also mark for us increase in the number of outdoor and weekend trips as a family. This is my other opportunity to retreat from the humdrum life of responsibilities and a monotonous time-table and create beautiful memories for the future for us. We consciously try to visit different kinds of events during our one-day trips to be able to expose our son to the different facets of nature and different kinds of themes, be it science, paintings, amusement parks, etc. 

Shopping not only of clothes but also of indoor games with days becoming shorter and the outdoor evening playtime almost minimizing to null also marks winters. So, my son and I prepare our list of the best buys and don’t buys. Every year, it gives me an opportunity to introduce a new activity to my kid. For example, games like Scrabble and memory skills can be played during this time to help a child master expertise in them. 

So, while all my friends and neighbors keep complaining about the temperature drop and cold waves, I welcome this time of the year with joy and take up this opportunity to bond more with my son. It gives me a chance of getting in to the buddy parenting mode again after the hustle-bustle of the previous few months, celebrating dusshera, diwali and bhai-duj. While Christmas and New year ensure our fun is not yet over, December gives an opportunity to come back to my own family after the meetings and greetings with friends and family during the previous festivals and, thereafter begins my personal journey of togetherness with my kid in the world of #Khuljaye Bachpan.

Cooking: An Opportunity To Bond, Learn, Experiment, And Achieve

Food - It is usually a very sensitive topic in households with a toddler or a pre-schooler. Right from the stress that the mom goes through to ensure a perfect balance of variety, nutrition, appeal, and timeliness to the end purpose of its consumption by the child often turn out to be a very strenuous task both for the mom and the child, at times transforming the house into a miniature battleground. 

My toddler was also one such kind, who was very happy-go-lucky the whole day except for the mealtimes. How much ever effort I put in buying the most fancy cutlery or cooking a wide variety of food with a colourful appeal, my toddler would just not be excited. At times, I felt he really didn’t need food because with or without food, his energy levels were the same. That often urged me to just give up the whole activity of making him eat altogether. On a serious note, I was getting impatient to the limit of frustration and often vented it out on him. At one point of time, I had switched to very simple cooking because I realised whatever my effort was in the kitchen, my son’s reaction was anyway the same. 

As he started growing up and learning the names of vegetables, fruits, and different food items, I also started the practice of explaining to him the items served on his plate. Gradually, he started understanding his likes and dislikes. But, while I had given him choices in other things, I was very conservative when it related to his food. I had heard from other moms that their children were addicted to junk food and had developed problems, such as excess weight gains, cavities, etc. I wanted to avoid this situation right at the outset. Therefore, I rarely gave him the choice to select from his plate. Rather, I read up a lot about all the food items and the associated nutritional and health impact and started making up stories during the meal time based on that information. 

With the passage of time, the inquisitiveness of my son started to grow and he started asking me about the ingredients used in the food, which eventually translated into how they were used or the recipe of the food. At that time, I realised that rather than coaxing and scolding him to eat, I should rather focus on how food is prepared, right from the scratch to see if that could create a different perspective in him. I started showing him different videos and pictures that would capture the story of the entire food cultivation process right from sowing seeds in farms or managing dairy farms to delivering packaged food on grocery store shelves. We also visited a few farms of corns, sugarcanes, wheat, rice, etc in the outskirts of the city to help him visualise the concept better. I was fortunate enough to see a difference in my son. I felt he had subtly started valuing the effort that went behind in ensuring yummy food on his plate, conveniently placed right in front of him in the comfort of his home. 

His interest in the food related efforts was so aroused that he started to bring his chair to the kitchen to watch me through the entire process of cooking, asking lot of questions on what I was adding, why I was adding, and how it would help our health. With my son beside me, cooking in the kitchen also became a fun task. We started spending quality time together chatting and learning. Whatever I didn't know on the spot, I googled it and replied to him thereafter. Within a few days, he also volunteered to join in the effort and started contributing to activities like peeling the peas or washing the plates or spoons before the meal. 

I had a choice of being authoritative and forcing my son to finish all his meals. That would have solved my problem with a bit of stress of course, but my son would not have developed the affinity he has now toward cooking and food. I am fortunate that good sense prevailed in me and I dared to redefine my limits. In fact, my cooking time has become an opportunity for both of us to bond with each other. My son also learns lot of things in the process and the excitement he has in explaining everything to his father on the dining table is a delight to the eyes. Those little moments in the kitchen with him are like ‘khuljaye bachpan’ for him. After all, childhood is a beautiful journey of unlocking the secrets and discovering joy in everything. 

#Khuljaye Bachpan

PC: truparenting.net

Raising Individuals Not Reflections!

There are two very commonly used proverbs in English: “Like Father, like son” and "Like Mother, like daughter.” Although on the surface level, they may look very gender-biased, they more or less indicate that children take after their parent(s). This may sound biologically plausible due to genetic and familial factors. But, an individual’s overall personality has a lot to do with their own basic inborn traits and their response to the world, even outside of the household. 

I became aware of this too early as a mother that my child’s personality was a lot different from mine and that of my husband. We are both ambiverts and love to live in our own happy world, choosing our own public time. However, we have been challenged with parenting a child, who is always in the limelight wherever he goes. Initially, it used to make us a little uncomfortable when the entire attention would be focused on us as he would run around, talk loudly, mingle unhesitatingly with all in every gathering, steal everyone’s notice by partaking in every game and event in parties, and so on. There were times when I found myself being called upon on the stage by being virtue of the mother of my son, who would have already participated in whatever was going on. I would come back home and try my best to convince my little one to check with me before jumping into things. Before going out for a day outing with a big group of friends or a birthday party, I would give him pointers to remember in his little memory: “Don’t be too excited. Sit near me. Don’t walk away and join whatever is happening.” But, every time he would give me a puzzled look with widened eyes, making it obvious that we were not on the same page. He did what he loved to do, spontaneously and exuberantly, and our persuasions to tone down his enthusiasm didn’t make any sense to him, especially at his young age.

This kind of a forceful arrangement was not making the three of us happy in any way and was taking away the zeal from my son to go to social gatherings or among people. It was then I and my husband realised as first-time parents that we were actually unintentionally curbing his true self. In order to ensure our comfort, we were asking him to do things beyond his logic and understanding and making him uncomfortable. We pondered over the situation and decided if one party has to move his cheese, let it be us because we, being adults, have done it often already for others anyway. We decided to accept him the way he is without any pretence rather than mould him into the typical 'like parents, like child' mode.

From that point, we've always let him explore the world in his own sweet terms - to enjoy, to experiment, to learn, to participate, to be in the limelight, to create his own space away from us, to make people remember him as him and not necessarily as our son, to connect with the world with his own talent and behaviour. In fact, we've started taking efforts to move out of our comfort zone and be hand-in-hand with our little extrovert. There have been moments of discomfort and embarrassment at times, but we’ve felt better upon taking everything sportingly and enjoying his spirit. His excitement and enthusiasm heighten every time he finds us participating with him or encouraging him; consequently, our filial bonding has strengthened further.  

For, in this process, I have also learnt to be empathetic to his wants and desires. I always ensure I am there to oversee him and help him in case he needs me. But, I have let him follow his heart and build his own story of new experiences for himself. As I watch him grow, I feel happy to see a kid, who is inquisitive, adaptable, friendly, and an explorer. He is confident and fearless in taking up new roles for himself on his own, be it acting in a skit, anchoring on stage, trying out new sports activities like martial arts or skating, engaging in leadership roles like that of a class monitor or a school bus coordinator, doing calligraphy and crafts, etc. After all, childhood is the only phase when we do things without getting hindered by what will follow next or who will think what. And the more such memories of the childhood we have, the more confident and content we as adults are. Childhood is not about doing prescriptive things, but about exploring your imagination through innocence and celebrating the simple joys of growing up. I have decided to let my son live his life in his terms and not in my terms. I have unleashed his passion and energy, so he can enjoy his childhood unfettered: Khuljaye Bachpan!

As authoress C. JoyBell C. said, "the best thing we can do for our children is to allow them to do things for themselves, allow them to be strong, allow them to experience life on their own terms, allow them to take the subway... let them be better people, let them believe more in themselves.” 

#Khuljaye Bachpan

Beautiful Memories Are Never Created In Confinements!

Every time I listen to the Hindi gazal ‘Woh Kagaz ki Kashti, Woh Barish ka Pani,’ I feel very nostalgic about my childhood … not because I have grown up listening to this song or this song was associated with any particular phase of my childhood days … but for the various images mentioned in the song that connect to bits and pieces of my experiences down the memory lane. Floating a paper boat in the puddle, soaking in the rain water even in good clothes, going out to play even if the sun was high in the sky and scorching brutally, stomping on the bushes while chasing butterflies and birds, organising the marriage of a doll with a friend’s doll and then fighting over something trivial, falling down from the swings and then getting back on our own, standing up on a sand hill at a nearby construction site and making houses and castles in the sand, and the pride in possessing our simplest of toys as the biggest treasures of the world — were indeed the most pleasurable moments and activities of the children brought up in my generation. All these experiences take a very special place in our memories and contribute to an important part of the way we have grown up as adults. 

While I am a woman who reflects on these past reminiscences with a smile on my face, my priorities change when the woman inside me becomes a mother exclusively. We, as this generation of mothers, are so bogged down by a fear of infections and allergies that we behave like panicked souls, always on high alert ready to raise the red alarm at our children. We don’t let our children go out in the sun, presuming they will feel exhausted, and keep our sunscreen bottles ready in case of inevitable situations. Our over-protective nature doesn’t let our children solve their own fights themselves. One or the other parents, with their unintentional intrusiveness, generally manage to resolve the conflict by shutting up one or more kids. The high purchase power of the contemporary society also lets parents keep changing toys or buying new ones before the child has actually finished exploring and feeling attached to the existing one. Some people may argue that excessive attachment is not good, but come on ... we are not roaming around with our favourite childhood toys as adults. Making sand castles falls under one of the restricted luxury activities of today’s kids that they can enjoy only within gated communities with a special sandpit area for kids or on beach vacations. When a child slips down from a swing, the parents run toward them to lift them up before the child has put in any effort to balance themselves up. 

We have, in fact, become too judgemental of the basic spontaneous actions of a child and foresee too much based on their small temporal insignificant actions. And, ironically, our attitude has become a barrier in our connect with our children. We have narrowed down their restricted zone so much so that children are just getting used to ‘no' all the time and losing the touch of mother earth. There are certain valid arguments like there are more germs in the environment now. But why are we making the assumption that the human body is not developing anti-bodies to protect itself against these? If the world is more polluted today, it will be even more tomorrow and these children have to survive in that more polluted world. And, anyway, we get enough warnings on the most dangerous seasonal diseases like swine flu, dengue, etc. and get enough tips on protecting our entire family against them.

I still remember the rainy season of my son’s first year at school. While he would wait excitedly to alight from the bus not to see me but to feel the touch of the rain water on his skin, I used to stand there like an armed mother, ready with an umbrella and raincoat, in my attempt to ensure that a single drop of rain should not touch his skin lest he gets cold and fever. Every time he would notice me standing eagerly at the bus-stop like that, his face would become upset. Reluctantly, he would get armed against the rain water and walk to the house holding my hand. I could see the sadness reflecting visibly in his countenance. So, one day before a long weekend, I thought I would be just a little lenient and let my son enjoy the rains because I had a few days in hand to help him recover in case of a sickness. It was drizzling, so I felt less guilty about my decision. The bus came; my son was surprised to see me without umbrella, the rain water slowly dripping on my head. There was a sudden rush of excitement on his face. He got down and asked, “No umbrella?” I said, “Yes. We have a three-day weekend, so let’s loosen up ourselves a little bit today.” He was very happy and ran to the park. Suddenly, it started to rain heavily. His face lit up more, but he looked at me with an expression of expectancy. I couldn’t say no that day and nodded. Within a few minutes, his school uniform was all wet. He was enjoying himself and pulled me along with him. We both started playing in the water, walking on the mud, touching water droplets falling on leaves, and watching small flies and insects hiding in the flowers and leaves. We made that day memorable for both of us by unleashing our common passion for enjoying the rains. While I was re-living my childhood days, my son was creating his childhood memories. We have repeated the same thing multiple times, the time chosen strategically by me, and enjoy every bit of the mother-son bonding we make with each instance of such freedom.

I believe I’ve also evolved as a mother with that incident and realise that parents should try to remove materialistic restriction from their children and let them search, explore, experiment, learn and grow with their interaction with the nature. They will in turn emerge as fearless beings, who in future will not hesitate to defy the traditional limits in their careers and aspirations. Rather than supervising them all the time, we can become their accomplice in the naughty crime of soaking in rain water, making hands dirty with sand, catching butterflies, floating a paper boat in puddle, and so on. After all, parenting also symbolises re-living your own childhood all over again. By offering company to our children in such small pursuits, we will be able to watch over them while bonding positively and adding our own image in the beautiful memories of their childhood. Their connection to nature and the easily affordable pleasures around will also help instilling in them values and love for the environment and the life around. As Rachel Carson said, “Those who contemplate the beauty of the earth find reserves of strength that will endure as long as life lasts."

I hope I am letting my child live a fearless childhood and my urge to protect him does not dampen his free spirit. Khuljaye bachpan for my kids and all the other kids too!

#Khuljaye Bachpan

Just Shut Up And Go To Bed!

The shrinking size of families is leading to a change in the upbringing of the present generation of kids and, therefore, producing a separate breed of people for tomorrow’s world. Indeed, with kids growing up with parents in a domestic set up with limited visits from grandparents and occasional gatherings or meetings with relatives, their proximity to the concept of larger family is diminishing. In such a situation, the parents have called upon themselves the additional responsibility of taking on various roles for their wards, right from nature walk, gardening, and storytelling as a grandfather to cooking yummy traditional cuisines, oil massaging, and storytelling as a grandmother to being that go-to single point of contact for wish-fulfilment as a paternal or maternal uncle or aunt, along with their daily role of parents. Unless parents diversify their interactions and bonding with their children in different ways, they will not be able to connect to them. To make the upbringing and the world of the child holistic, they must get in to the shoes of all these personalities and behaviours and expose their children to different levels of relationships and emotions on a day-to-day basis. 

As parents, we often get too tired with our attention divided across multiple activities and the child sometimes becomes the victim of all the venting out at the end of the day. While we may empathise with ourselves as individuals with our own set of both good and bad emotions, we should also be cognizant of the fact that the child has his own little world, full of happiness and positive energy, where they constantly want to bubble up, chirp and connect to their surroundings. For children in nuclear families, an upset or angry mother becomes their world because they don’t have anybody else to go to. A mother's cross mood shatters their world, even if temporarily. They either get scared or become sad. They don’t have anybody to go to in order to release their bottled-up energy, which may result in them either withdrawing from their surroundings and getting in to their own shell or retaliating as a rebel.

There are times when parents tend to engage their kids with electronic devices like tablets, iPads, cell phones, etc. to get some breather for themselves. However, after a few days, these are the same set of parents, who complain about the excessive engagement of their wards with devices. A child has immense energy and their learning curve is ever rising, so obviously they pick up what we as parents make available to them. Whether that becomes their addiction or they give it up is a different story altogether; it is rather their individual taste within their limited scope. Alternatively, if we expose them to storytelling and lot of activities (which definitely demands lot of time from us), we will end up shifting their interest to more creative aspects. The nature walks or gardening or any connection with nature that grandfathers have done with their grandchildren for ages add a different dimension to a child’s personality. They learn the qualities of empathy for the other lives and care for their surroundings. As parents, we must get into the shoes of the grandfather, who otherwise might visit once in a year, to expose the child to the immense amount of learning stacked up around us in nature that is priceless. A grandmother’s companionship fosters a strong sense of culture and tradition in child, helping them understand their connection to their roots. The pampering uncles and aunts act as comic reliefs for the child to help them laugh and relax while learning the beauty of unconditional love.

For a long time, I was complacent with my responsibilities as a mother as long as my son would finish his meals on time, sleep timely, go to the park every day once and listen to a story read out by me. I used to feel happy watching him play with his toys and stay engaged in his own world. But, as he grew up and his curiosity started increasing, he started asking a variety of questions, ranging from science, languages, history, space, science to mythology and so on. All of a sudden, I found myself on the spot - of being a know-all and an omnipotent to do all. Of course, I failed to cope up with the variety and range of his questions and couldn’t answer. At times, the credit of my inability also went to the time of the day when the question was asked. For example, I would get too exhausted by the end of the day to really trouble myself to think and get him the answer. He would get one rebuke from me and withdraw in to his own world. My conscience would often prick me, “Who would help him know but you? Who else does he have around all the time?” I took an effort to understand things from his perspective and realised my terrible mistake. In order to ameliorate my mistake, I started practising patience. I took it up as a challenge on myself to respond to all his questions as if I were appearing for ‘Kaun Banega Crorepati.’ The elders in our family became my phone-a-friend lifeline to consult any question that I wouldn’t know about mythology; Google surfing became my other resort - the main thing was that I have to exhaust all the available means to help him get the answers before saying no. I also started buying more books depending on the topic prevalent with him from time to time. Within a short while, I started enjoying the game. Together, we would play quizzes on Tata Sky (Active Wizkids), read encyclopaedia books, and challenge each other with new questions. Our game stretched to vocabulary testing, rapid fire rounds, and quizzes in the house. Even my husband became a participant in most of these games. The fun part for the kid was when he competed against his father and managed to beat him on certain questions. In this process of bonding together in our pursuit of knowledge, we have improved our knowledge and become inquisitive readers and researchers. Our playful moments together are a source of empowering our son to know more and satiate his thirst.

I want my son to grow into a fearless adult. I want to ensure that he has a childhood full of playful moments, unfettered and full of new experiences. Given our nuclear family structure, I am doing my best to give my a child a “Khuljaye Bachpan”, are you?

#Khuljaye Bachpan