Put on your own oxygen mask first!

Whenever I have been to drop my son for a public examination I have seen anxious parents. I was also one of them. Slowly, I started noticing that my anxiety fuels more stress in the whole family. If I want to ensure a peaceful life, I need to investigate the cause of my stress. Instead of that if I start expressing it in the form of anger, fear it further complicates our children’s lives. If you think you are helping them by constantly hovering over, it may not be the case! Perhaps, your children need some space and privacy. In the end, it is important to examine our own ideas about success and failure. Is success defined by the performance in the examinations only?

We tend to attach our children’s success stories with our image and reputation in the society. We fail to see it but indirectly it hurts our ego when they do not live up to our expectations. We visualize our children becoming someone big. And our imagery is based on what we have seen or experienced. When they are successful, we attribute it to our hard work and when they do not reach the expectation set by us, we consider it to be a personal failure. 

Although, our children much younger than us, they deserve a chance for exploration.  If a parent is an achiever, he/she wants the child to learn everything very fast and be at the top of the class. If the parent is not an achiever, they want the children to get better marks than themselves. So they start hiring tutors and sending them to best schools and coaching. Parenting does not stop at getting all these amenities.

Mindful parenting is about seeing the child and the circumstances as they are without coloring the reality with our own experiences and emotions.

Children have to figure out their own path because no one has seen the future. Our expectations and judgments come to us from our ancestors, society and our own emotional baggage. However, the circumstances keep changing and one needs to be aware of current scenarios. We need to be careful while passing snap judgments and remarks.

A parent who is mindful is a passionate listener who facilitates blooming of young minds! S/he is open-minded and does not restrict people around. Most importantly, S/he investigates his/her own state of mind from moment to moment. Whenever I have taken flights with my little son I wondered about this announcement when your flight takes off- “Put on your own oxygen mask before you help a minor!” If you are not breathing properly, you cannot be in a position to help your child. Our thoughts fill up our minds with smog and we are unable to steer clear. Even when we are on the ground, we are constantly wearing different masks. We are trying to cover up our image with different kinds of masks. Recognizing what kind of mask we are putting on at various moments should be investigated.

As mindful parents, our primary responsibility is to watch our own thoughts and ensure that we are at peace!

P.C. Live and lets fly

Mindful parenting in the time of Career dilemma

Many children and parents are unsure about what subjects to study or which career path to go for. Some pupils are excellent in all subjects and do not know what to choose. Some children just hate subjects taught in schools and are clueless about future. Counselors and aptitude tests may guide up to an extent but the final decision is to be taken by the family.

As a parent, the first thing that one could do is to focus on the bright spots in your child. The bright spots may not be related to the career choices that you want them to have. You could be holding a strong position about one particular career path which may not be your daughter’s choice. Most parents want their children to be an engineer, doctor, CA, MBA or an architect. Especially in India, the competition for professional courses is fierce. Even if your ward is a high achiever, getting into the dream university/college may not always be possible. When you start noticing the bright spots, you may notice some seeds of an entrepreneur or an artist in your child which you are underrating! S/he could also be ready for a different career path that you are not even in a position to dream.

Having goals is important to get a direction but often these may be set by parents and not by children. Sometimes, parents keep repeating those goals in conversations and they try to imbibe those on children. They may turn into parental aspirations and expectations may lead to conflicts. It is important to ask yourself, are you putting your aspirations on your children?

What is the meaning of the term “Mindful Parent”?

The first step in being a mindful parent is Listening!

In several families, the communication between parents and children gradually reduces as the children grow. Adolescents have their own friend circles and things to do. If all that a parent is going to talk about is a set of instructions and warnings, kids do not want to listen to them. Instead, if the grown-ups start listening with focus, the gates of communication can open up. Listening without judging immediately could help to resolve several of the questions mentioned in the previous blog. Listening doesn’t mean listening with your ears only. It also means being aware of the non-verbal cues. It means being aware of the state of mind your child is in.  This may help you to understand your child better. You will be able to find the bright spots. If children get a confidence that you are not there to criticize or scold, they will open up and feel that you are supportive.

As you listen carefully, you can discuss college options freely. You can sit with your spouse and child to explore the possibilities. Sometimes, your children may not need advice but they may just want to think aloud and you can be of great help in this process. As far as possible, it would be better to make them independent thinkers rather than expecting them to go by your decisions.

If your child hates school or some subjects, it may come up during a casual chat in the evening. You can slowly find out what is happening in math class which your son hates.  It is possible that you may be able to think of an alternative way to explain the concept which he is not getting! You may watch a historical play or film together and it can develop interest in history in your child.

It would be better to keep a low key about that negativity. The more you are vocal about it, it is going to aggravate. If you are anxious about his/her exams, it will feed to his/her fear factor. S/he is entitled to an opinion. If you really don’t approve of it, you need to think about what exactly is the problem with it.

Suppose you don’t like your daughter’s clothing or your son’s hairstyle, whining about it doesn’t help. During holidays let them try out things. As youngsters, they are into image building. You cannot take their right away. However, you do a humble inquiry about how they got the idea, who else among their friends is doing it. This needs to be done tactfully- not to appear peaky but to become friendly. If they can carry it with confidence, let them do it. If it is the matter of girls’ clothing, check where exactly they will be, get to know their friends’ parents. Slowly find out what is driving their ideas. If you are friendly, your daughter will share her plans and talk about her experiences with you.

If you can become a good listener, they will emulate you. If you show interest in what they have to say, they will become your friends and the communication gap will reduce. In a perfect world, it would be good to have some time set aside for such interactions. In today’s busy life, parents will have to think about creative ways of setting up dialogues.

As you listen with care, you will notice that some of your complaints about your child’s behavior are connected with your own state of mind and behavior. If your son is spending an excessive amount of time on phone or computer, observe yourself.  Are you on the phone most of the time yourself? You cannot set different rules for yourself and your child. You cannot order them to run errands for you or shout to get their room cleaned. If they have seen you keeping the personal spaces clean and organized from early on, they will learn to do it. If someone was doing it for them all the years, they are never going to learn it.

If you show sensitivity they too will understand and help you when necessary. Our children are here to teach us patience and introspection. Many issues are connected with how we do what we do.

To summarize, the first two steps in mindful parenting are Listening and helping your child to become an independent thinker. As you are doing these, the third major step watching your own state of mind.

Link to the next blog

Mindful Parenting

Being a parent is demanding! A child’s life is quite happy until middle school. But when children reach class 8 or 9, parents start worrying about the college education. At this age, children become somewhat independent and they start exploring about the possible career choices and colleges.  I have been teaching teens for more than two decades and also have a 20-year-old son. For the last several years, I have been getting a lot of queries from parents of children of various ages. My younger sister and brother who are based in Mumbai have a teenage son each. I keep hearing various stories from them. Once my sister said, why don’t you have a parenting workshop? This got me into thinking. I started looking at me as a mother* and a teacher.  Through this came the idea of a workshop for parents called “Mindful parenting”!

These are some of the questions and remarks that come to me from people around.

·         Which is the best school/college or course for my son/daughter?

·         My son wants to go to IIT? How can we prepare him?

·         How to cultivate a habit of reading?

·         My son hates math and his grades are terrible! Please help!

·         How much should I teach my teenage son?

·         My daughter is unable to focus on studies. She looks tired and depressed most of the time!

·         My son does not help with housework. He is constantly on the phone!

·         Should I monitor my son or my daughter constantly?

·         My son has an excessive attraction towards branded items which I don’t really have.

·         My daughter is 14 and has a boyfriend. The school keeps calling me for meetings! What should I do?

I have been exploring mindfulness with my husband Vinay Dabholkar. I felt, most of our adult life is spent in parenthood. It is important to connect the two. What is mindful parenting?   Around the same time,  I was inspired by Dr. Shefaly Tsabury’s book titled The Conscious Parent. This touched my heart. Here is an important quote from her

“When you parent, it’s crucial you realize you aren’t raising a “mini me,” but a spirit throbbing with its own signature. For this reason, it’s important to separate who you are from who each of your children is. Children aren’t ours to possess or own in any way.  – Dr. Shefaly Tsabury

As I was reading it, several examples came alive in front of my eyes. Most of the time, we are in a process of fulfilling our dreams through our children. We think that we are molding their lives and we are doing everything for our children’s future. However, it is hard to see that these are our desires. Being mindful parent means being aware of what is happening around you and watching our own state of mind at all time. But how can we do it? Is it possible? To explain this, I am going to give examples from my life when I was not a mindful parent.

Most of my life, I was a complete control freak. I wanted my classes, my office space, my house and family for everything to be the best possible. Here are two incidents from my parenting experience. When my son was very small, I used to take him to different classes. One of them was the abacus class. As a dutiful mother, I paid the fees for 2 months- around 2500 Rs. This was back in 2004 and was a big amount for a little boy’s math class. The teacher gave him a packet of books and an abacus. She showed him how to use it. He was supposed to do 100 sums in 2 days. Her intention may have been good and the method may have worked for several other children. He tried to complete a page on the first day. But he was in tears. He was overwhelmed. There was no abacus after that. The abacus is still lying in his drawer. He was not very great in multiplication tables or simple additions in the early years, but his math grades have always been good even in the college! It was painful for me to accept that he was not doing the sums. At that time I was feeling bad. Now when I look back I notice that not going abacus class did not leave any lacuna in his learning.

Another incident was during an Indian Robotics Olympiad when he was 10 years old. He used to love making robots with Lego. I enrolled him for the Olympiad. Until the day of the competition, he would make different kinds of robots but the challenge in the competition was very specific and he was struggling. I pushed him a lot over the last two days. I was sitting with him and monitoring all the moves of the robot. He won a silver medal but the stress of competition was far more than the enjoyment that he would otherwise have got while building stuff with Lego! This episode taught me a lot.  I have kept these experiences in mind until now.  Although these were bitter experiences, they helped me to guide him in later classes.

Fast Forward 10 years … He is a passionate classical guitarist and wants to focus on his music while pursuing a degree in another subject. Based on his grades and earlier hobbies we had thought that he would take up a career in engineering but he chose to study pure science and math. We supported him and he seems to be managing well for the last two years.

As a parent, it is extremely important to realize what the real strengths and weaknesses of your child are.  How can we find out what the strengths are? Many parents feel that their children are rather mediocre. They tend to focus on the school grades and competitions only. How can one decide upon the courses?

This is a perennial question that comes to me from most of the parents. Let us investigate this whole thing about Cause and effect- Does a best school or college lead to a successful life?

Recently, I watched this Hindi film called “Hindi Medium”. It is a story of clothing merchant from Chandani Chauk and his wife Mita who want their daughter Pia to be admitted to the best school. She is an insecure mother who lets herself fall prey to the fear of failure instilled in her by society and the educational institutes. If my daughter doesn’t admission to Delhi Grammar School, she will not able to speak good English. She won’t get into the best college, she will stay behind, she will be under depression and she will start taking drugs. The inconvenient truth today is that drugs can happen in any college or high schools.

I have seen several students in top schools not enjoying the school, unable to cope up with pressure and falling behind. An elite school which charges exorbitant fees may not be the best school for your child. The quality of teachers may be better than an average school but there is no guarantee that your child will like the lessons. How do we make big decisions about schools, colleges, and career?

In the next blogs, we will see the basic principles of being a mindful parent and how we can raise happy, responsible, energetic children?

Photo Credit: DNA India