Are we trying hard to wrap real us under so many glittering layers: But Why? Perhaps, we need to, or we compelled to?

Gone are the times when professional and personal life was well demarcated. People can recollect that in the ’80s there were some close friends or family who were outside from their professional zones. These friends were there to discuss any problems, and there was no need to look good in front of them as their presence was enough to make you feel good. However, the time has changed rapidly. Now, even on social media, there is a pressure to look professional in front of everyone along with a practical understanding that no one is your true friend. One must look modern and sophisticated, no matter how one is feeling. The unsaid rule dictates no sorrow, and slogging should visible. Showing one’s energetic self is much necessary rather than talking about low times and tensions in life.

Along with success comes the confusion of projecting as modern and hiding the small-town past. Undoubtedly, the rawness of a village, small town or culture should be celebrated that shape a unique identity to an individual.

A person should tell a story and a journey of his unique self, rather than compartmentalising boxes of stories into two: a successful novel and an unsuccessful comic. How can we segregate our society into two groups: achievers and failures?

The ‘dream sellers’ of our community provide young generations with a blueprint of success. In these blueprints, they promise to create an exact clone of previously successful people. Naturally, as a naïve one wants to erase every learning from the past and follow piped blindly to reach to the bracket of success, the punishment of leaving the road map of success is catastrophic; it may start with tagging a person with the adjective of a loser, flop or unfocused. Sometimes there surrounds a fear: the fear of rejection and chances of losing reputation. Such doubt can perplex any individual and sense of being humiliated by peers can enough to break any individual.

Our generation must take pride that they are performing in the volatile world. Dreams are not: constant phenomena, a unidirectional road, or a destination. Dreams are a flexible journey that needs to be enjoyed and cherish.  

Scene one

Nancy, 8-year-old, entered the room with her full energy and started jumping on the bed as if its a trampoline. Her mum Sussan sitting on the couch after her long night shift in a hospital asked Nancy -“Could you please stop and sit down to study “.

“NO NO NO ” giggled Nancy and started jumping more on the bed. Her mother found this as rude and sign of disobedience and ordered her with a shouting pitch -“I said you need to stop now. Can’t, you listen? You are growing into being a rude girl, and I am not going to tolerate. That’s how you think that a child of your age should behave?”

Nancy quickly jumped out of bed and ran outside shouting -“I don’t like you mom, you all the time do is to scold me.” Nancy went to another room and slammed the door again and start crying at her loudest pitch. Within 15 minutes, the house turns into an emotional warzone including the bombardment of usage of heavy words for each other and development of high tension zone in the premises.

Scene two

Meanwhile, Nancy took out her iPad and start playing her favourite game for the next 20 minutes. Eventually, her mom entered the room and shouted-“how many time I need to tell you that are not supposed to play on iPad before you finish your study.” Afterwards, the whole drama repeated for the next hour, and the house suffered another emotional meltdown.

What is the situation of a 2020 parents

For many parents, residing in a fuming household with growing up kids is an everyday story. Undoubtedly, stress with one’s child can lead to other negative emotions such as guilt, apprehension and lack of concentration at the workplace. As a parent one always wish that things in the house shouldn’t be that stormy, and your child must learn to behave more softly. But how? No clues or as a parent you give up despite millions parenting technique you are aware? Perhaps, your smart and intelligent child is bitten by some crooked bug and making her a furious soul.

Unfortunately, as a parent, we want a quick fix of a behavioural issue and often forget to look at problems from a child’s perspective. Moreover, parents often overlook their daily communication with a child instead focus solely given to solve the rude behaviour of a child while they scold.

Wait a moment and step back

Can you tolerate anyone’s shouting and not respond them back?

Perhaps, in such situation usual response would fight back or flight back reaction. Either we going to say something to the person or we would leave the place immediately . Here it is crucial to realise that flight is the response our children are giving when a parent shout. They try to leave the area immediately as they know that they cant win.

But we are parents, we are saying things for the child’s benefit

Perhaps, you believe that you are saying it for the child’s welfare. However, the reality is that as a parent, you are not saying but shouting, additionally, none of the parties is going to gain anything fruitful with such harsh body language.

Then what should be done?

Understand the art of communication

Realise that when two people talk, they use a lot of nonverbal cues such as hand gestures or relaxed body muscles to build up an element of trust. While communicating with a child, trust can avoid unnecessary argument and trouble of emotional outburst in a home.

How can we increase the level of trust while communicating with a child?

Avoid hurtful speech

Hurtful wordings can severely hamper a child’s self-esteem

Don’t let them believe that you strongly believe that he/she is good for nothing. Children can go to any extent to prove what their parents think.

Avoid shouting

We often complain that our child loudly talk to us but forget to acknowledge ‘who is the teacher for teaching that shouting means showing the power’ If you trace back, perhaps, as a parent you send the message unknowingly  hence, change yourself and let your child know about it

Show empathy

Instead of criticising, try to look from a child’s perspective. The problem he conveys you may seem little for you, but they may be big trouble for him. Try to listen rather than ignoring the child’s feeling.

Develop a common interest

Boost his/her self-conversation in a meaningful way by developing shared interesrt. For example, doing sketches, singing a song or going for a walk together.

In a nutshell, children tend to imitate adults. Sometimes they misbehave, but it doesn’t mean he/she wants to hurt their parents. It means they are struggling somewhere to cope with the outside environment and all they need is a courteous, respectful and fun association with their parents.

medvarta_Toodler or teen_trust is the theme

For teenagers, school gates are the doors of dreams, hopes and aspiration. However, there are particular unpleasant situations where going to school becomes perplexing.
One evening a girl visited my house in Tripura and greeted me with a pleasant smile. She was a pleasure to talk as she proudly told me about her achievements, such as a dance performance on stage. Just after ten minutes, her mother entered into the room and instructed her daughter to talk about the problematic situation she was facing.
Within a moment, chirping voice melted into choking words engulfed in deep pain and humiliation. “I don’t want to study “she bluntly announced. “You don’t want to consider education, I understand but can you help me to understand what’s going with you “I requested.
 With an apologetic tone, she revealed- “I haven’t been to school for last nine months, as I failed twice during my pre-board examination of 10th standard and restricted to appear in tenth class examinations. Although, I tried hard during my previous attempt, but couldn’t go through. Moreover, teachers talk to me badly and studying in a young age group cohort is shameful for me “.
Then regaining her calm, she announced- “But I will not be a housemaid like my mom and many women in my community, I want to do something which can give me respect “. With whisper – “My community people asking mom to get me married like my elder sister, but I strictly say no to such mindless proposal. I don’t want an alcoholic husband and troubles like mum faced throughout her life. ”
I looked at the girl’s confidence with utter disbelief. Perhaps, it’s not she should be ashamed of for not passing 10th standard. It’s a gap area of our society, which fails to offer a solution if a child is unable to pursue 10th -what options we provide them?

In rushing to sketch an academically poor student, we often forget to highlight the backdrop of a child, including social determinants and linking the challenging situation of children of addicts.

Her father was a labourer who unfortunately became an alcohol addict at a young age and suffered numerous health issues such as pancreatitis and memory loss conditions. Such challenges put an extra burden on this child’s shoulder to look after the family and doing household chores while her mother is away with her work as a housemaid.
Although, I promised her to help her to overcome the situation. However, deep inside, I am aware that solutions are not going to be easy for her and society. Hope I can get some useful suggestions from readers to navigate this complex interplay of social determinants.

Each set of couple with kids faces unique set of challenges for their kids . Suggestions that works for others may not suits you as a  parent . Hence, tailoring is needed according to one’s situation. However, common denominator of safety and teaching a child about basic human qualities in a fun way remains constant.

For mum and dad think for a moment what is the pay off for child for doing harsh or rough behaviour. Usually, they try to be innovative and create a fun environment. What seems a nonsense for us , is completely making sense to them .

Try to  navigate their action with your knowledge and key is communication. When we raise baby , often we forget that toddler needs talking, they need to communicate in a way where he or she feels like a big boy or big girl . If you feel that some action is going to create accident , give them the information. However, way you give information is not from the angle of higher authority. As kids are born leaders and they can destroy authorities in their life;no one except true love can win the battle with them . Hence, make up a story format and say that you see a boy of same age and he was doing something dangerous at home and you need to rescue later as he bangs his head on wall etc . Another important thing kids must be understanding about is the ‘ personal space ‘. A personal space is a zone which is one hand distance around a person and one can’t hit it or touch it ( atleast at time of anger ) . Letting them know that dealing with grievous injury is beyond the control of a mom . Explain reason . Stopping every fun behaviour in name of risk would also not a justice with kids . It’s hard to be a parent of a toddler but provide an opportunity to setup a great relationship with your kids .

Usually, the word lifestyle synonymised with grandiosity, opulence and beauty in magazines and newspaper. The glossy larger than life images are enough to capture the senses of readers and persuade them to be part of the affluent brand.

Unfortunately, my illusion with the word lifestyle shrank after visiting the arena of public health. Here, mercilessly,  the extravaganza term  ‘ lifestyle’ is amalgamated with the name ‘disease’ and submerged in the sea of ‘lifestyle diseases’. The term and effect both are equally obnoxious and have a Hercules power to give an obese person a heart attack or conspire to generate lung cancer for a smoker. Unfortunately, in the enchanting sea of ‘lifestyle disease’ artistically designed flute glasses with long stem cannot subside the unwanted effect of excessive drinking.

Perhaps, acronym ATMAS may have the key to deplete the terrifying impact. ATMAS stands for ‘According to my alternative solution’, where a person says yes to healthy lifestyle choices to reduce the burden of ‘lifestyle  disease ‘.

Wish 2020 brings happy and healthy ‘life’ ( in style ) for you and your family . Stay connected

Our dear mum’s situation is nothing less than a ringmaster in a cage who is dealing with two fighting tigers together. Neither the ringmaster can escape, nor tigers can go out of the cage as the show needs to go on.

She realised that’s one loose end , for a complete package she needs to identify other solution strings. The complexity of the situation requires a multipronged approach. Illogical behaviour pattern of children would be another grey area to invest in time and energy. But How?

One word, I searched to describe the expectation of parents for above eight and below 12 children is ‘self- motivation’ As a parent, we have our side of stories to narrate how frustrating it is to ask a child regularly to do his routine task. The daily dose of preaching from parents sometimes becomes nagging and winging and turning a home environment into a negativity charged battle zone. At these moments of bitterness, one wish parents express – “I wish my child become a bit more ‘self-motivated’. To support the thought, we often wrap the core idea with negative or positive statements, depending on our mood for the day.

We all are quite familiar with negative wrapping sheet of thoughts such as “my child is not good enough”; “he is lazy”; “he doesn’t listen to the instructions carefully”. Some time along with the negative wrapping, we also put a guilt tag such as perhaps, I am not a good parent as I can’t give my child enough time.

Here, it is essential to highlight, as a parent feeling low is a normal reaction in the journey of motherhood, however, while communicating with your child, when venting out frustration becomes routine then its indeed time to check communication strategies with a child.

  Understandably, as a parent, we all do have expectations from a child and worrying about a child’s future is genuine. However, when the worry of a parent becomes an anxiety trap for a child, and he feels isolated and criticised, then it is wise to lower down the level of concern. Instead of the long term goal of fixing the life of a child in a day’s lecture, focus on short term objective. Such as how can we calm down a child, boost his confidence and create a supportive environment to let him self – motivated. The recipe of the self-motivation of a child consists of love, patience and forgiveness. Here, forgiveness is not the antonym of discipline; it denotes not to tease or reminds his mistakes on every occasion. For instance, sometimes we parents make a file of child’s complaint and errors. Afterwards, we drop the file on the head of the child on every time of committing an error. Hence, stop showing all the mistakes at a single point of time instead give feedbacks about single action at a given point of time.
These age groups try to find an identity outside there comfort zone and invariably commit mistakes as a parent take these moments as an opportunity to provide some constructive feedback. Let them navigate there journey good or bad instead then you try to show the right path. Trust your child as much as you trust yourself. Children are the best sailors; they don’t let their boat sink so quickly and easily.

Sitting alone in Ashok Vatika,  Sita heavy heartedly repents her decision of crossing Lakshman Rekha. She recalled how she was conned by the demon Ravan for his initial harmless looks of a sage. Would she knows about such devastating consequences on first glance, had she ever stepped outside the Lakshman Rekha? Perhaps, never!
Meanwhile, Ravan steps in the Ashok Vatika again and boasted his capturing  methods and shouted-“no one could ever find you here in the middle of the demon world; one day you would give up your hope too .”
In spite of catastrophe, Sita mumbled optimistically” Sri Ram will sure find me soon and let me free from your wicked world. ” Sita knew at that point of time that she was helpless and waited patiently for help from an outside source.
Similar to the story of Sita’s isolation in Ashok Vatika, there is a tragic story for person’s who are trapped in the web of addiction.
 An individual who suffered from addiction never knew about his aftermath of crossing the limit of consuming alcohol or drugs daily. Once brain chemicals depended on the alcohol and drugs, unfortunately, exclusively using will-power of a person is not enough to overcome the hurdle of addiction. Outside assistance is needed to conquer the demon of addiction. These support comes in the form of medical management, family support and community involvement. Solely relying on prescription pills for addiction can result in a higher rate of treatment failure and consequently develop a chain reaction of frustration and anguish. Hence, fighting with the addiction to save a human soul is teamwork which requires dedication and perseverance.
The message for people trapped in a downward spiral of addiction should consist of a friendly and supportive tone. Rather than blaming the victims for crossing their limit line.