PARENTING social behaviour. Sadly, this is exactly what our grandmothers and their mothers have practised with their kids and grandkids – particularly boys – in the yester years. This unhealthy dose of care and attention, even during times when it should be totally avoided, is one of the reasons that build up rage and impatience in children. I often wonder if this aspect of upbringing is perhaps what makes us so intolerant, annoyed, and disgruntled as a nation, especially every time something goes against our wishes. It seems that we’ ve been born incapable of practising actual self-control and patience. I strongly believe that the amalgamation of a child’ s emotions and character in the future is dependent on how his parents reacted to his behaviours – good or bad – particularly, in the early years of his life. By the age of two, children experience some understanding of morality. Their feelings begin to be triggered by what is right or wrong. Unfortunately, this is the time when most parents in Pakistan are yearning to make their kids learn ABCs and 123s, so that they can boast about their child’ s“ intelligence” prior to
even joining school. This is an unfavourable attitude, the roots of which have slowly scathed our children’ s early years with the worthless and unwarranted pressures of the world. At least in the old days, parents weren’ t as panic-stricken or possessed by the insane desire to make their kids outperform others in academics. It was either incessant love and care, or an ill-disposed spanking which their children’ s negative behaviour warranted. While none were the correct course of action to be followed by parents in their child’ s moment of inappropriate aggression( considering both granted the child the attention he sought for) they were at least constructively circled around fostering the child’ s upbringing during an age when it most needed. Nowadays however, the focus of renovating a child’ s behaviours at a tender age has been drastically mitigated by the hungry race and greed for attaining academic intelligence, good grades, and related achievements that can be bragged about.
While doing so, we have forgotten the art of cherishing the most precious moments of our little one’ s lives by fi lling their laps with iPads, and their hands with an insane number of automatic, unproductive gadgets singing out the alphabets and numbers to them. When our children moan for these prized possessions, we fall prey to their tears and frustration and reinforce their negative attitudes when it is most undesirable. It is an unhealthy mix of care and competition, which Pakistani parenting currently revolves around. Last week, here in Massachusetts, I saw a four-year-old in the middle of what could have become a highly repetitive negative behaviour, if addressed wrongly by her parents. Sitting on a bench in a children’ s playground, I witnessed a perfectly healthy reaction by the child’ s parents to their daughter’ s aggressive moaning, on retreating. She didn’ t want to leave the park despite two initial warnings from her mother, and hence threw a tantrum on the thought of going back home. As she lay protesting on the cold rubber mulch beside the playground slide, her mother started making her way to the car. Meanwhile the dad, sat patiently on the bench, and busied himself on the phone without throwing the slightest glance at his daughter. Consequently, within seconds of not being given the desired attention, the kid came over to her dad, gave him a hug, and walked back to the car herself. I couldn’ t help compare and contrast this situation with a Pakistani child and her parents in place. I envisioned their responses to the tantrum in my mind. Some hugging during the crying time was the primary image that formulated in my mind, followed by dragging the child to the car in utter helplessness. Perhaps, I have seen this, and similar reactions manifesting in different Pakistani playgrounds before. It is true that children demand a lot of care and attention in the early years of their lives. However, an excess of everything is wrong; hugs and pampered attention during a tantrum, the instant reward given after a high-pitched protest, or the constant unhealthy quest of academic limelight – instead of a healthy mission of rightful upbringing – are all factors detrimental to instilling correct moral instincts in our children in their most important years. Parenting is a lifelong, arduous, yet meaningful gift from God. It is a constant attempt in learning to shift between fruitful attention and essential ignorance between a child’ s momentary happiness and the thought of his future self and between loud weeping and vibrant giggles. Our reaction in each of these sweet and rough moments tests us as a parent. It certainly takes a village to raise a child, as an old African proverb goes. We need to ensure that in the village of various behaviours, challenging or rewarding, we play our part well.
37 | BOOM