Respect, kindness, honesty, courage, perseverance, self-discipline, compassion, generosity, dependability—most parents wish to instill such values in their children, since these will protect them from potentially negative societal influences and lay the foundation for them to become good human beings. But are the high pressure lifestyles of today, with their fragmented families, locational fluidity, cultural uprootedness, and outsourced parenting taking a toll on the value systems that our children are growing up with?
Old Mrs. Bakshi’s plants are her pride and joy. About a month ago, a friend and I came across the shocking sight of nine-year-old Anshul uprooting Mrs. Bakshi’s newly planted seedlings, ignoring the old lady as she pleaded with him to stop. About to step in and bodily pluck the spoilt brat away from the poor lady’s precious plants, we saw his mother, standing nearby, watching her son’s wanton behaviour with adoring eyes. When asked why she didn’t stop her son, her reply stunned us into silence.
“Why are you making such a fuss? They’re just a few silly plants. Why should I stop my son having fun? Aren’t children more important than a few weeds?”
Seven year old Kushagra’s highly educated grandfather—an Engineer from one of the country’s topmost universities—forbade his mother to teach him table manners and basic courtesies like saying ‘please’, ‘thank you’ or ‘sorry’, because “he’s a BOY. Let him grow into a MAN, not some sissy girl who has to mind her manners and say ‘please’ and ‘thank you’!” The same grandfather sees nothing amiss if his darling grandson lies, cheats at tests, refuses to listen to anyone and throws tantrums at the drop of a hat. One shudders to think what kind of an adult he will grow into, moulded as he is by such destructive influences.
While it is a fact that sons are generally more indulged in this respect, there are growing instances of girls becoming spoilt brats too. Twelve year old Vidhi, from a family of educated professionals, trying out dresses at a boutique, carelessly throws the discarded ones on the dusty floor. When the shop assistant remonstrates with her, she coolly tells her to shut up. Her mother, a high ranking Government official, observes this indifferently.
There always were a certain percentage of ‘Anshuls’, ‘Kushagras’ and ‘Vidhis’ in our society, but their numbers and proportions seem to be burgeoning at alarming rates now. Kids kicking, biting, hitting and screaming in a bid to get their own way—over an ice cream, a new dress, permission to go somewhere—are growing exponentially, as are destructive, aggressive teenagers.
In fact, nowadays the minority of well-behaved, non-aggressive and sensible children are often labelled ‘supressed’ or ‘abnormal’.
How far are parents to blame?
Often, spoilt children are excused by parents or family members with, “They are just kids. They will grow out of it”. And you do see a number of spoilt brats growing out of it. Manish Bhatia, a terror on wheels as a child, whose exploits relatives and family friends still shudder to remember, is a hard-working, disciplined and responsible young professional in a Delhi-based financial company today, who knows how to balance work and fun in life. Another such example is twenty-three year old interior designer Akshita Ruia.
Outsourced: Both youngsters are offsprings of double income families who ended up spoilt simply because they were ‘outsourced’ kids, brought up by servants or in ‘day boarding’, with parents who were unable to give them much time and tended to overcompensate by catering to all their demands and being slack on discipline and values. Lack of monitoring of television and internet use in our media-happy world is yet another source of potential self-destruction for such kids. However, both of them were fortunate enough to find good peer groups, which enabled them to absorb life-forming values. However, all ‘outsourced’ kids are not so fortunate—there are plenty who end up completely confused in life!
Besotted: And then, there are kids who are brats because they are brought up to the creed of self-gratification to the exclusion of all else. These are usually unfortunate children whose parents and family members are besotted with them and can see no wrong in anything they do. Say social analysts, such parents and guardians have no idea how badly they are damaging their children with their blind adulation and total absence of any kind of value transmission. It is usually such children who end up as entitled, obnoxious adults—an abomination for their fellow human beings and an anathema for society. The growing trend towards violence, road rage, molestations, and even crime is, to a significant extent, an outcome of such heedless, value-less upbringing.
Smothered: Yet another type of parenting known to yield disastrous outcomes is that of ‘smothering parents’—the ones who will just not let their children be and often literally push them into rebellion, in the form of falling standards of schoolwork and objectionable behaviour. Shaista Wadhwa, a thirteen year old student in my language workshops was a puzzle. Her consistently poor performance in school tests and her brilliant mind and excellent performance with me simply did not match. A heart-to-heart talk with her mother revealed an over-anxious and smothering woman. Constantly under the pressure of her mother’s expectations and anxiety, Shaista found it impossible to perform. The objectionable and rebellious behaviour was simply a by-product of her inner turmoil. By contrast, the free and easy ‘it’s ok to make mistakes’ atmosphere in my workshops brought out her talent and calibre to the fullest.
Over the years there have been numberless ‘Shaistas’ in my workshops. I usually try to show their parents the source of the problem. Those who have understood, the way Shaista’s mother did, and managed to modify their interaction with their children, have seen them blossom, while those who have refused to see this have usually ended up either crushing their children or turning them into brats.
Instilling Values
It goes without saying that most parents would like to instill values like respect, kindness, honesty, courage, perseverance, self-discipline, compassion, generosity and dependability in their children—yes, even most of the besotted ones would somehow like their children to acquire these values without having to do anything about it. However, the hard fact is that teaching values takes time —and hands-on engagement!
Says Dr. Gary Hill, Ph.D., Director of Clinical Services at The Family Institute at Northwestern University, “You need to make time to be with your kids and make the time you have with them really count. Talk with them about what’s right and wrong, and what constitutes good behavior and what doesn’t.
Have these kinds of conversations with your kids on a regular basis so that the topic of values becomes a completely ‘normal’ one in your household. That way, in the future, if your children do face moral conundrums, they’re going to be more comfortable broaching the subject with you than with their peers.”
Practical measures
Psychologists and social analysts suggest various practical measures to give good values to children.
- Practice what you preach
The first thing to remember is that children will never ‘do what you say’—they will always ‘do what you do’. They learn from seeing how you treat them, overhearing your interactions with others and observing what you do in different situations throughout the day. It is simply no use teaching them honesty, integrity, perseverance and responsibility if they see the elders around them behaving differently. So, set a good example.
- Apologize when you make mistakes
A lot of teenage turmoil and rebellious behaviour is due to the fact that children expect their parents to be perfect and are disillusioned when they fall from their pedestal. If you make them see from an early age that parents are human too, much of this friction can be avoided. In this context it is important not only to acknowledge your own shortcomings, but also to apologize to your children for your mistakes. This shows them that you value and respect their thoughts, perspectives and feelings. And by doing this you are also modeling respect towards others, and accepting responsibility for your mistakes.
- Guide through everyday events
There is nothing that makes a child run away quicker than a planned ‘preaching’ or ‘lecture’ session. However, everyday conversations are an excellent way to weave in important life lessons. There is something almost every day that can be used as an opportunity to teach your children about values—an incident in the news, something you or your children do or observe someone else doing. These can make great on-the-spot lessons.
- Share personal experiences
We all have experiences in our lives that taught us valuable lessons. Share some of those stories with your children, especially ones where you made choices that upheld good values. In fact, even sharing stories where you made bad choices and had to learn some lessons the hard way are a good idea to get certain messages across. This is especially effective with older children, who may be facing similar dilemmas at the moment and might learn from your experiences.
- Hold them accountable for mistakes
One of the biggest blunders we tend to make as parents is trying to make things easy for our children, especially when they make mistakes. A neighbour’s broken window, a complaint note from school, a poor score in an exam—all children go through these. Our job as responsible parents is not to go and smooth things over, but to make them face the music—chores at home to pay for the broken window; a promise to the teacher not to repeat the offence; confiscation of certain privileges if bad scores persist despite promises of improvement—are just some ways that children can be made to take responsibility for their mistakes.
- No easy way out of challenges
One of the most effective ways of teaching children consistency and perseverance is to not let them give up anything halfway. This is especially important in our times, with increasing instances of children demanding privileges, such as expensive coaching in academics or sports, gym programs, dance and music classes, etc. which they give up halfway, when it gets tedious and the glamour wears off. We need to make it clear to them at the outset that once they start something, they will have to see it through to its completion, or pay a pre-decided penalty. This will encourage them to take decisions carefully, take responsibility for their decisions, and to persevere.
- Involve them in helping others
Encourage your children to help others whenever they can. This could be through simple acts of thoughtfulness such as making a get-well card for a sick friend, befriending a shy new kid at school, and helping a neighbor or elders at home. This is great training for traits like generosity, kindness, compassion and respect, as well as good experience in how satisfying it is to help others.
- Good reading versus TV and Internet
This is easier said than done in this age of audio-visual media and with the markets flooded with easy-to-read trashy books. This is where childhood training comes in. Studies show that children who have been read to or told stories as kids are much more likely to break out of bad reading and viewing habits and adopt good, character-building tastes.
- Applaud good behavior
It is human nature to crave approval, especially from parents. Children are especially vulnerable in this area. A child who receives applause for good behaviour and achievements from its parents is very unlikely to go wrong. Psychologists say that most misbehaviour is nothing more than a plea for attention.
“You need to use the time you have with your kids very wisely,” urges Dr. Hill. “Make sure you build time into your schedule for consistent, quality, face time with your kids—while they’re still kids.”
Article published in ‘Responsible Parenting’ magazine on 19th November 2013
reblogged from Being a Parent
At Random 