Enjoy the struggle as much as the result

Ehaan loves to run – and boy, does he run fast! For him, running gives him a sense of freedom and joy (I think!). He also participates in lots of races at school and in the track-and-field class that he goes to in the evenings.

Whenever I go and watch the race, I am always urging him to run faster. If there is a ‘themed race’(e.g., back-and-forth, relay etc), I often yell ‘strategies and tactics’ at him so that he can win. He never listens to any of it. After the race, in case he has won, I congratulate him. In case he has lost, I often ask him (stupidly) things like “why didn’t you run fast?”, “where was your focus?”, “you could have run faster in the closing 20 mtrs” – essentially, observations which are correct but totally useless to him. I am amazed by the responses he gives me as follows:

■      “[competitor who won] ran so fast – zoooooooooom”

■      “I had such a good time. Can we come again tomorrow to run?”. “Can we come again tomorrow to run?” My response was, “No, tomorrow there is no race.” He retorts, almost surprised, “So what if there is no race. The ground and track will still be here. So we can run.”

■      “I saw you cheering me – who was the other Papa beside you?”

■       “Sir clapped so loudly. I heard him shouting my name”

■      “Who runs faster – Flash, Lightning McQueen or me?” I think Lighting McQueen since he is a car”

It’s almost as if he has shut me and my random instructions out completely. He never focuses on coming first, though I know in the heart-of-hearts, he wants to win. Not because the trophy is important but because ‘his Papa says so’. Or (sadly), it is because ‘Papa’s behavior is different when I come first and when I don’t’.

My reflection: We make kids aware of the fact that ‘winning is more important than losing’ as opposed to getting them to ‘Enjoy the moment – outcomes are what they are’. No wonder then, that in later life, they fall prey to competitive pressures – they have lost the joys of the journey and only the destination matters. Now as parents, this does raise lots of questions around ‘is it wrong to push for excellence’ and ‘mere competing does not make kids tough for the eventual big-bad world out there, ‘improvement is critical – hence criticism is important so that the kids know what to improve on’

Several years back, a friend proudly told me his strategy to push his kid – whenever the daughter would come home with her grades, he would just question her WHY. For example, if she came back with an A, he would ask, “Why not A+?” If she came back with an A+, his question was “Why not first 5 in class?”. If she came first in school, his question was, “Why not first across schools?”. He felt he was constantly pushing his daughter towards becoming a better version of herself. Few years later, I heard the news that his daughter tried to commit suicide after she had gotten through her medical entrance. Reason – she had not scored high enough to get into the ‘most prestigious branch of medicine at the most prestigious institute’ but could only get the ‘2^nd best branch at the most prestigious institute’. She felt like a failure in her own eyes since that’s what her father had conditioned her into – NEVER BE SATISFIED, KEEP TRYING HARDER…. BUT TO WHAT END

Lesson 4: Fear and the art of 'Nike-ing' it

My son is very afraid of water, or atleast was till sometime back. Actually, this is an understatement. He used to hate water – even water splashed on his face would bring tears to his eyes. His sister, on the other hand, is a very good swimmer and can do all kinds of acrobatics and strokes in water. And boy! She loves to show this off to her parents and relatives, especially in front of her brother to hog all the accolades.

My son realized that every time a swimming coach (or his father) push him to swim, they will invariably make him put his head in the water and force him to take out bubbles inside. He used to howl a lot and used all kinds of tactics to avoid it (e.g., crying in advance, promising to do a lot of other things in return for not having to put his head in water) but no luck. More than me, his swimming coach kept pushing him to do it since that is the ‘right way to swim’.

In a matter of weeks, he started doing it for 5 seconds at first, then 10, then 15 secs and now for over half a minute. He is still as afraid of putting his head in water since he has yet to master the technique but he just ‘does it’. He knows resistance is futile and has now trained himself to do it before anybody tells him. He still shakes when water is splashed on his face during bath but instead of crying, he smiles and laughs it off, almost saying, “Bring it on, I am not scared”.

What goes for swimming goes for other things too – he does not like to eat healthy food and prefers junk (pizza, pasta, chocolates). However, given that he is grossly underweight, on the advice of doctors, we had to give him one boiled egg very day at breakfast. On the first day, he threw a massive tantrum that shook the house but he was forced to eat it. The second day, he tried to demonstrate retching and also vomited – but we fed him another one. When he refused to eat the egg, we refrained from giving him anything else. For over 4 hours, he starved himself – and then, he went into the kitchen and asked for ‘his boiled egg’. Next day on, we had no complaints at all. And now, he actually looks forward to his egg. He has started linking eggs to his favourite super-heroes – “How many eggs does Hulk eat each day to become strong?”, “Does Thor eat more eggs than Captain America?” “How can Flash run so fast if he does not eat any eggs? If he eats eggs, then why is he so thin?”. Since comics have come into the mix, we were rest assured that eggs wont be a problem henceforth.

My reflection: Kids seem to be able to expand their comfort zone so easily through various ways – an uncanny sense of ‘realism’ (or inevitability) seems to be amongst the top one. They do not over-think it nor do they keep reliving the same fear indefinitely. As adults, we are nowhere close to exploring things outside of our zone – well, for kids, like Nike, they ‘just do it’. This often reminds me of the various motivational themes like ‘Don’t have a Plan B’- so that Plan A succeeds since there is no choice.

I was reminded of the story of the great Maratha warrior, Tanaji Malusare’s uncle, Suryaji from the stories of Shivaji, the great king. Tanaji was a brave soldier who sacrificed his life trying to win back the fort of Kondhana from the Mughals. So long as Tanaji was alive, it seemed that the numeric odds of 5:1 (5 Mughals for every Maratha soldier) did not bother his troops. No longer did the news of Tanaji’s death spread, than his troops started fleeing and dropping weapons. It was at that very time that Suryaji (who was also Tanaji’s no.2 man) stood up and announced that the path to retreat did not exist – he had cut off the ropes which the Marathas had used to climb the Kondhana fort in stealth. So the only way out was ‘death or by defeating the enemies’. Faced with no choice, the Maratha army fought like tigers and defeated the Mughals. Like my son said, “If you have no choice, you will have to do it. And if you have to do it, you may as well enjoy it”!

Lesson 3: The Answer lies in the Question

My kids love the iPad. They love to watch a lot of TV. They like to eat a lot of junk food. They know several ways to ask for these – sometimes, it is a ‘reward for good behavior’, at other times it is a guilt trip (“You were away for so long and now you are tired and want to sleep – atleast let me watch TV”) and sometimes it is just an irrational demand (“If you want me to do X… then I need to play on the iPad”). They have learnt this behavior from their surroundings – watching other kids keep playing on the phones, PS2 and endless Temple (or Ninja) runs.

Now, my wife and I are both strict and yet considerate (or so we like to think and believe!). We have explained to them the drawbacks of too much TV, too much iPad and too much junk food. We had tons of conversations on the pros-cons of these issues – some of these debates lasted for minutes (ended by a loud wailing) and others lasted for hours on end. Neither side wanted to give up and we were at a quandary as to how to get our kids to ‘comply without using a loud voice or tough hands’. What amazed us was the kinds of questions our kids asked us during these debates (and they must have harassed us with hundreds of these) –

■      If TV is bad, why do you watch [favorite serial season X] at night? Lets measure who watches more TV – us, grandpa or you?

■      If iPad is bad, why does everyone we know have not one but 2-3 iPads? On vacations, we don’t get to take our iPad but [xx, a close friend’s son] always gets his

■      You tell us too much junk food is not good for our health and still, we saw our family doctor in McDonalds with his family. How is that possible?

■      Why does grandma watch her serials for 2 hours every day and we are not allowed to do what she does ONLY on this matter? Why don’t you put similar restrictions on grandma – she watches 2 serials every day…

■      Why are you glued to your mobile phone for so long but we are not allowed the iPad? If the mobile is good, then why not the iPad? Actually, the iPad is larger – so it is less harmful to the eyes

■      Why is playing on the Nintendo PlayStation (even an action game which involves moving the body vigorously) not like exercise? We can play tennis, boxing, running and even skip rope on the PS2 – then we wont need to go to the playground

■      Why is watching news channels “good” but watching cartoons “bad”? We are also inspired by seeing super-heroes do good deeds – is that wrong?

■      Is good or bad decided by who is doing it? Or by what is being done? So, if Papa talks a lot on the phone and so do I (kiddos), it must be equally bad or good

Of course, we tried to push back using the logic of ‘everything has to be done in moderation’, ‘not everything adults do is good for kids’ and ‘there is a right place and time for everything’. Our kids then not only started complying and ‘doing things the right way’ but also over time, turned the tables and created home rules (incl. for us), like  

■      No TV during dinner for Mama-Papa also

■      No mobile phone when kids want to play with Mama-Papa; concept of mobile-free hour

■      Distinguish between iPad for entertainment and iPad for education. The time on the two is NOT fungible

■      De-stressing involves cuddling and not switching on the remote

■      Equality between movie time for adults and movie time for kids

My reflection: Engaging in questions (however uncomfortable) enables kids to learn and imbibe at a different level and also helps them create their own logical system. Now, technology and its usage gives rise to so many questions and yet, it is imperative to engage in dialogue with kids. They have the right to question various things, especially when the answers to many of them are going to form the basis of several foundational values in their life e.g., balance over extremes, questioning is important – answers may not be to your liking but the right to questions is a basic one. On a different note, how I wish I had asked more questions in my childhood, rather than focusing on finding the best answers for questions asked by others!

Lesson 2: Failure - A Taught Attitude

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.

Lesson 1 on Children(ting) - SEE, LEARN & IMPROVISE

I was dozing around in bed, doing nothing as such, in the afternoon. My son had woken me up in the morning at 5 30 AM earlier in the day. Thanks to school, he always wakes up very early, even when it’s a weekend; actually, let me take it back – when it’s a weekend, he wakes up far earlier than on week-days. Whenever I ask my son why does he not do this ‘self-propelled’ wake-up on weekdays, when there is school but only does it on weekends, when his parents want to sleep, he just laughs mischievously.

He now wanted me to play with him but I was not feeling up to it & I really wanted to sleep for some more time. Slowly, he cuddled up to me (what a great feeling!) and whispered in my ear, “Baba, there is something I need to tell you – a complaint has come from school”. All my sleep vanished & I sat up startled, as if I had just gotten an electric shock!

[CONTEXT: A few days earlier, he had received ‘warning 2’ from the school for misbehaving on the bus. This time, it was for running like Usain Bolt every time the bus reached school, not waiting for the bus monitor to take him to class. Warning 2 meant he was one step away from being disbarred from using the school bus, which meant that I would have to figure out alternative means of transportation for him, a total pain in the neck for both, my wife and me. Not only had I given him an earful at that time but also discussed the ‘what…if’ scenario with my wife – the consequences left both of us praying to Ganpati, Shiva, Vishnu and Hanuman, all together, that it never comes to that. He was around in the house as we discussed the apocalyptic nature of ‘NO BUS’.]

Now, as I stared at him, half-worried, half-angry, he smiled naughtily and said, “There is no complaint. I was just joking – will you now play with me since you are awake and fresh?”. I was so relieved that my worst nightmare had not come true that I started playing with him instantly. In that moment, I totally forgot how a 5-year old had tricked me!

My reflection: Kids understand parents’ psychology more than we understand theirs….. They are observing, explicitly or implicitly and getting better at using emotional cues and triggers. THEY ARE ALWAYS WATCHING AND GETTING BETTER LIKE AN AI TEACHING ITSELF! I often wondered why no books are written for kids on how to ‘get their parents to learn parenting’ – now, I know why. They have an in-built book-cum-video-cum Youtube channel, linked to an AI-system that helps them to ‘train parents to behave how they want them to’”😊

Children(ting) – what my son taught me at 4 years of age

Parenting is what parents teach their kids and how they handle them and hope to contribute to their upbringing and development in the childhood years. I last wrote an article on parenting and its conflict some time back but I think I made a mistake – if I take stock of the last six months (June-November 2017), my son, Ehaan has taught me more than I have taught him. Yes, I did introduce him to the Hulk, Thor and Iron Man. I did try to teach him Maths (2+3, 3+2) and yes, I have been trying to teach him how to be an obedient, respectful child. However, I think all this pales in comparison to what he has taught me – 5 key reflections of life as follows:

■       Fear is to be overcome by ‘just doing it’: Ehaan is afraid of water – or atleast was till sometime back. His sister, Asya, is a very good swimmer and can do all kinds of acrobatics and strokes in water. He used to hate water – even water splashed on his face would make him cry. I often pushed him to go swimming with Asya, in India and then in Indonesia. He realized that everytime a swimming coach (or his father) push him to swim, they will invariably make him put his head in the water and force him to take out bubbles inside. He used to howl for sometime – and then suddenly, he just started doing it for 5 seconds at first, then 10 and now 15 secs. He is still as afraid of putting his head in water and of swimming without a float – he has yet to master the technique but he just ‘does it’. He knows resistance is futile and has now trained himself to do it before anybody tells him. He still shakes when water is splashed on his face during bath but instead of crying, he smiles and laughs it off, almost saying, “Bring it on, I am not scared”. Can I ever ‘just do it’ since there is no option and do it with a smile on my face? I will try to take the easy way out for sure!

■       Fate hands you a lemon, make a lemonade and drink it: We have just relocated to Jakarta, Indonesia after staying in Mumbai our entire lives. My wife cribs and is often very upset given the unsettling this has done to our lives. This makes me guilty and I often question if I am putting my family through something that they don’t deserve. Everything is so new – we have no social circle, no friends, nothing. I cope up through my work but my wife is often left holding the can. Ehaan, on the other hand, has adapted – he does not refer to Mumbai but focuses on the pleasures that Jakarta/Indonesia has to offer. I can always rationalize that he is a child or maybe, he has not stayed in India enough to feel the difference. My daughter, does get nostalgic and talk of returning back when she is sad. Ehaan NEVER does that – he is focused on making the most of the situation he is in!

■       Attachment through detachment: On a related note to the earlier point, Ehaan is very close to his nanny, who has taken care of him since birth. She has been with him for over four years and used to accompany him everywhere. The nanny came with us to Indonesia but got bored there since there was really nothing she could do, given the language barriers, lack of her family around etc. She decided to return home – for a few hours, Ehaan was sad. He refused to eat food, saying he wanted to be fed by her. In some time, he declared that from then on, he will eat with his own hands – here was a kid who had always been fed by his nanny or mother. He outgrew the attachment so quickly and now eats with his own hands (which is a separate blessing in disguise for my wife and me). Similar is the situation with his cousin, with whom he used to play day-in and out in Mumbai. He has accepted that his cousin won’t be around him always and never says a word. When we do video-calls, he joins to talk to his cousin but after that, it is as if the cousin never existed. Another remarkable pointer is his relationship with his paternal grandmother – when she is around, she is the centre of his life but when she is not, he does not miss her. He gives his 100% to the present – to the person or situation he is in and does not focus too much on the past or the future

■       Compete with yourself, don’t over-analyze – just enjoy: Whether it’s a running race or any other competition, he does not focus on how strong or big his opponents are. He just does his bit, enjoys it and pushes as hard as he can. Hence, he is not hindered by self-doubt or the strengths of his opponent. He compete to win and just gets a thrill of doing it. Moreover, he never leaves the race midway, despite being way behind – if he started it, he will finish it, be it several minutes after the winner. I am not sure if I can ever do this…..

■       Be curious – uncover the mysteries that life has to offer: He asks 100 questions an hour and hassles us completely. However, behind these questions is a phenomenal quest to understand the mysteries of simple things – why does a lemon taste sour but an apple doesn’t? Why does gravity pull us down – if so, is it ‘bad’? If God created us, why are some of us bad and some of us good? The list is endless… As I face his incessant barrage of questions, I often wonder if I have stopped asking many of these questions; if I have learnt to accept the ‘ways of life’ without trying to be inquisitive and be prepared to be surprised everytime with small things. Ehaan does not need a ‘play area’ to play nor a ‘designated time to enjoy’. He seamlessly converts a staircase into a play area and dinnertime to playtime (much to the exasperation of my wife and me!). If you are around him, he plays with you – if not, he creates a parallel world, with objects or without them – with just his imagination

I could go on and on but that defeats the purpose. Maybe this is not unique to Ehaan and kids are like this. Maybe it is I who am discovering these through Ehaan for during Asya’s time, I was too engrossed in ‘being with her’ that I forgot to observe and learn from there. Whatever it is, I am grateful to Ehaan for teaching me a few valuable lessons – I just hope he remembers them going forward!

Conflicts in Parenting

I am a parent – I have a 5 ½ year-old girl and 2 ¾ year old boy. This biological qualification suffices to be a parent.

I like to believe that I am an informed & aware parent. In this age of information ubiquity, it is actually more difficult to NOT be an informed person. You always have too much information – google, whatsapp and their likes. So also with parenting. Now, on top of this information, you add the fact that my daughter goes to a prestigious school where the information available to one parent gets multiplied (or maybe exponentiated – if there is such a word; check Google!) based on the anxiety & insecurity level of the parents. This anxiety then gets transmitted (like a virus) onto e-groups, play dates and meetings to create multiple parental conflicts for me.

Classes or no classes – my daughter’s schedule post school hours is as complex as mine (sometimes even more so). Let me see, Monday is chess class from 4-5 30 PM, then is gymnastics from 6:30 – 8 PM. Tuesday has abacus from 4-5, skating from 5:30- 6 30 and gymnastics from 7 – 8 30 PM. The weekends are even tougher – there is story-telling, swimming and drawing also. Sunday is still free – and that’s only because I have put my foot down. I overhear eager mothers’ telling (or e-chatting) about the ‘wonderful Spanish teacher who will help explore linguistic abilities’ or the phenomenal swimming instructor who ‘really pushes kids to achieve their full potential’. Managing the logistics for these classes is a job that keeps atleast 2-3 members of my family busy. I see parents all around me, with different motivations – some with the best intentions of their kids at heart (of course, the road to Hell is also paved with the noblest intentions!); some do it because their neighbours do it and they don’t want Aaaryan to be left behind (this is a separate trend – 80% of kids have their names starting with A. The other letters in the alphabet are so clichéd). And some others do it to keep the kid busy so that they can have their uninterrupted schedule. Which parent will not want their kid NOT to succeed? Who has not heard of various childhood programming-linked psychology theories that the first 5-7 years will really determine the eventual character of the kid? Who has not heard the legends of sportstars who started practicing when they were just out of the cradle? Alas, my daughter is already 5 and can barely hold a badminton racket, cant concentrate beyond 15 mins in chess, can swim but very slowly and does all kinds of random gymnastics. Guess a career in sports is out L

Free time or no free time – often I find myself wondering how I can help my kids fill their time productively. How can I spend quality time with them? Should I use the time to inculcate the love of sports? Or should I tell them stories from Indian mythology to imbibe love for the country, patriotism and nationalistic values? Or better, should I take them to the Science Centre/Planetarium/Aquarium? Or should it be football and badminton? How to maximize one metric – ‘Return On Time Invested (ROTI)’? From dawn to dusk, how can I fill every unforgiving minute of theirs with 60 seconds worth of distant run (as per the Rudyard Kipling poem, If)? Whenever I see my daughter idle, I am always recommending a higher form of “living”, with my suggestions ranging from alphabets, painting, sports etc. Is plain leisure and relaxation wrong? Should one feel guilty if the child did ‘NOTHING’ for the day? There is no achievement or accomplishment so to speak of but just the fact that they are there and doing something? What is the balance and where does one draw the line?

Gadgets or no gadgets – today’s kids are so tech-savvy that I am already a tech-retard. They can adapt intuitively to any new gadget, phone and tech apparatus. The i-pad has become an indispensable learning device – heck, it has also become a Granny (my daughter listens to several stories on the ipad), a teacher (various instructional videos, coaching games), friend (so many Barbie make-up games) and playmate. Is this taking away from my daughter’s interaction ability in the physical world? Will her memory of childhood stories be those of the ipad or will she remember her parents & grandparents’ feeble attempts to try and recreate some magic through oral narrations (which unfortunately cant be as consistent, cant be paused etc) but do hopefully have more emotions than the ipad versions? On flights, I have seen parents hand an ipad or similar device to the kid and breathe a sigh of relief as the kid gets engrossed in it. In contrast, I remember bombarding my father with a 100 questions every time I got on to a flight with him (Who flies the plane? Why the belt? Where is our luggage? Is the plane a balloon). I don’t know how many answers he actually got right but what I do remember is the feeling that my father was so knowledgeable and caring. Will my daughter ever think of me like that or more as a ‘provider of the ipad’ which is more precious to her?

These are just a few of the dilemmas that keep haunting me. The ‘experts’ have the solutions to them of course – alas, no two experts can agree and one does not know who the real expert is. Till then, it is the one-eyed leading the blind!

The strange thing about these dilemmas is that there is no time to step back and figure out the answers. I thought I had time to experiment, ‘pilot out’ and try a few different things before finalizing the right answer for my daughter. Worst case, I still had my son so that even if something did not work out as per the “plan”, I could always course-correct. However, they are growing up so fast – time is not just flying but vanishing in an accelerated manner making me feel helpless. After all, I have a duty to be a good parent!

It is then that I am reminded (not by the internet but my own memory) by Kahlil Gibran’s famous lines on Children,

You are the bows from which your children

As living arrows are sent forth.

The Archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

And He bends you with His might,

That His arrows may go swift and far

One often confuses that bow and the archer – the dilemmas in my mind have reduced a bit for sure J