It was around 11 PM at night – my
wife and our nanny were fast asleep and I was working on some very important
and mission-critical ‘spreadsheets and power-points’ on my computer. My wife
wanted a break from her daily ritual of putting our 10-month old daughter, Asya
to sleep – hence, I got tasked with this. After all, I could make a
presentation on any topic under the sun in 20-mins and charm any audience with
my oratory – how difficult would it be to put a 10-month old to sleep! (My
voice has enabled me to put entire audiences of insomniacs to sleep in minutes
– so rest assured, I have enough practice in this!).
Simple enough - mission
accomplished in ten minutes! I felt proud of my ‘parenting skills’ as a male
(what vanity!) and as soon as Asya was asleep, I got back to my work. After
about half an hour, Asya, woke up and crawled towards me with a desiring look
on her face. I picked her and put her back on her mattress, patted her and
tried to go back to work as fast as possible. She again crawled to me and
started crying – being a ‘trained husband’, I immediately checked for signs of
potty and (to my relief) found none. I again put Asya back on her mattress and
tried to sing a lullaby to put her to sleep. After a couple of tries to come to
me, each of which ended in her being put back on the mattress, she started
crawling towards the kitchen. By now, I thought she is playing a game – hence,
I kept pulling her back from the kitchen and placing her again on the mattress.
After another 6-7 times of failed efforts, she waited in her mattress till I
was convinced that she wont go anywhere. She even closed her eyes to make me
believe this. As soon as I had started concentrating back on my work, she started
sliding slowly towards – wait! Not towards the kitchen but to the nanny room.
As soon as she came close to the nanny room, she started wailing loudly for
waking up the nanny. I rushed towards her since I did not want my wife to wake
up (loss of face for a ‘equal opportunities parent’ –“you cant even put her to
sleep once? I do it everyday thrice while doing five other things”, said You
Know Who!).
Alas! The damage was done and our
nanny woke up – she took Asya in her arms and Asya stopped crying and was
beaming with joy. Puzzled, the nanny put Asya down on the floor to see what
happens next. Asya started crawling at a rapid pace to the kitchen. Both, the
nanny and I, realized that this means only one thing – she is HUNGRY. We fed
her immediately, after which she slept soundly and I got back to my work.
My reflection: Kids often have a certain goal in mind i.e., food in this
case. They try several methods to reach there – when they fail, adapt their
moves and techniques. When my daughter could not get her father to give her
what she wanted, she tried ‘direct attack’, failing which, she tried to attract
the nanny’s attention. How many times would I have tried before giving up?
Would I have stepped back, analyzed the situation and then changed efforts – and
done so continuously till the goal is achieved? What amazing perseverance!
Often, I think we give things to kids too easily – only when they start
appreciating the difficulty of getting what they want, kids learn so many
lifeskills – and perhaps, the most important one, namely resilience and the
importance of NEVER GIVING UP. However, if we don’t allow them opportunities to
develop this, they may learn the reverse i.e., getting whatever they want
instantly and not even moving a muscle. In today’s day and age of instant
gratification, where a click can get everything delivered and a swipe can help
meet the most basic desires, isn’t this a dangerous personality flaw which we
are nurturing?
Lastly, children don’t give up what they want. A child will bring down
the planet to get what he/she wants. It is only later that we teach them to
‘optimize’, to learn what is the best ‘effort-to-reward ratio’. That’s when
they learn of ‘giving up’ as a great life-coping mechanism and worse still, of
rationalizing failures.
No comments:
Post a Comment