Parents vs Children - still a tug of war?

                                            

                                                           www.free digital photos.net

Early this morning I saw a little girl nestling cosily in her puny grandmother's lap.As I smiled at the girl,she rested her neck on her bony grandmother's arm to look up at me, turning  her neck alone all the way round as I passed by  them.What luxury,I thought.




                                                             

They were sitting on the steps of a  house whose inmates had perhaps not yet woken up.Perhaps the lady had stopped by to open her betel leaf  packet or whatever else helped her relax.What struck me was the luxury of confidence the little one by the wayside was enjoying.Confident of her puny grandparent's  care and protection.The sub-conscious confidence got by the time and attention spent on her: a gift that most parents can't afford for their children in their daily rush to make ends meet.




To a grandparent also this luxury is reciprocated.The child's innocent devotion far outweighs the calculative parent's response.Then there is also the time and tiredness factor of the parent.
                                                                                                              www.free digital photos.net
With the dwindling of our  society's  joint family system,the chances of  attention, love and care a child gets are getting increasingly rare and precious.




Making it all the more difficult for the single child.



Siblings provide the balance of temperament when matters go tough.


The overworked, anaemic mother sometimes has an inkling of this and so tends to go soft with her only child.
                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                           www.free digital photos.net






www.free digital photos.net





And then finds herself much in the same situation as Tom Sawyer's aunt , 'see-sawing ' between thoughts of,'poor child' (no parents-should I be more lenient?; We may substitute-no sibling,how will he/she pass time-should I be more lenient?) and,' am I bringing her up with the required amount of discipline? and 'If she's not made to share now, will she learn to share, care for others later in life?' etc,etc.

www.free digital All free downloads.com photos.net

Parents of the single boy child tend to be more wary of the company he chooses.It may be a good idea to win his trust.

They(the parents of both kinds-those of single girls and of single boys ) are in for a shock when the children  they so tenderly cared for turn out to be selfish, ungrateful and  rude.

Neighbouring children of the same age and mentality may help  solve the problem in some cases. But what if there are no neighbouring children or if they don't click?

Pets-cats, dogs, birds  - anything may  help.



,



.

All free downloads.com 
Apart from time-pass they help relieve the tension of school work,
 fights at school, low marks,scoldings at home,
school, various comments from  different quarters- relevant, irrelevant, anything.                                                                                                                           


Other-wise the child chooses the company of the 3 network machines-the cell,the TV, and the internet in different proportions, again making the parents's hair stand on end.





                                                        All free downloads.com

The visit of the 'right' relatives may be like a shower after the blazing sun. A jovial aunt may be the one to share those 'secrets' better shared with others than with mum.
Finally,a cousin may pull the pampered child down to earth with reminders that he/she is just one of the millions of children decorating the face of the earth.

Even if born in  a multiple child family,those given preference over their siblings  either on gender basis or for family resemblance or their looks or talents or whatever
 tend to have their head in the clouds and be selfish, aggressive,etc.even to the same parents who spoil them.

Leaving it either to nature to give them a timely knock on the  head or
 embedding  them as a thorn in the flesh  of the parents,
 a constant reminder  of their past mistakes.

Where then the tug of war? Good or bad, parents  ultimately reap what they  had sown in their child . 

Samacheer Kalvi [Uniform system of education] and English

                                               


The courts have certainly done justice to the students of our State.Provided equal education to all - the rich,the poor, the urban,the rural student.

 

Only its implementation is mind boggling..I'm referring to ENGLISH  in particular,the most dreaded dragon of the village  student who has no access at all to the spoken word.

Students of the previous syllabus could just spill out all they knew because both the questions and their answers were predictable.The new syllabus rightly focuses on spoken English and its practical applications.Only it was supposed to come in stages : step by step, class by class. Due to different prevailing situations,it landed on us all of a sudden.

And that's where the average village student suddenly finds himself treading on ropes less taken.To him even the asking of  basic 'wh'  questions- what, where,why
or pronouns - I, you, he,she.
Or actions like go, come,sit,stand
 or boy,girl  is either a stimulus to fear and shame or a cause for that  embarrassed smile,

 'How do you expect me to answer that?'

 And then the exams - even if he's among those who can read the question,he has no idea of what it's about.If it's a question of choice, he uses his version of Inky,Pinky Ponky.  -
Any other question he answers by whatever method strikes him at the time.-
 either copying bits of other questions from the question paper or funnier still -
 making a fine jumble of all the letters he can think of.Those who have a vague memory of what was taught in class tend to get confused between the words dialogue, letter writing, summarising etc in which case we have different types of inter-mixing.

Correcting such answers for the public exams makes us wonder what his problem might be-cutting class,or had his teacher been irregular or careless or was his primary education faulty?Is he from a broken family? Is he the bread winner of his family? His fault or his teacher's fault or his parents's fault?

Correcting papers for the re-exam is heart rending.When hundreds of children have no idea of what they are answering and why.What will their futures be, we wonder.Most children from the villages (I mean most backward areas) may give up after a few attempts at re-exam.And join their parents as labourers - as were their parents before them and theirs before them...with the same attitude of ignorance and submission to others as their parents were before them and theirs before them ....



For girls there is the additional fear of landing up with a drunken husband - as her mother was before her and her mother before her.

In case a student manages to clear the English exam, most probably he would have cleared the other subjects too.He or she gets a chance to opt for training as a skilled labourer. Where they can then afford  to forget all about English - for the rest of their lives.
  And with it, a gateway to freedom !

Sometimes I wonder how it would be if we gave them a choice of opting for their vocational skills in the tenth standard itself with a minimum of say reading and writing skills in English.This would prevent unnecessary 'drop-outs' and let them pursue their goals in peace.
                                                                                                             

Perhaps keeping all this in mind, the authorities have opted to bring the CCE {continuous and comprehensive evaluation} system of evaluation into force  from the next year onward (Although it's a nuisance to the teachers when students misuse their freedom of not having to learn by rote by dodging to open) their books itself.

And so hope, the sustainer of life lives on.



           All free download.com






                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                     www. free digital photos.net
                                                                           


                       

Are your friendships stable ?

A friend I know lent so much money to another friend of his that he could have built a fine house with it. You might have guessed the end.

The benevolent - turned stranger was ultimately chased out whenever he approached  his beneficiary.

Perhaps such stories remind us of families  where children born,cuddled and nurtured by parents suddenly only look at them with eyes of,"What more can I get from you?"...









.Yet that's the world, our minds tell us.

So that leaves us with our own personal experience with friends.
The ultimate test of friendship is whether you can trust your friend in money matters.

From of  old there was the fear of the mixing of money and friendship. So those who valued money more shied off from such money lending friendships-and most of those who valued friendship more-have been blessed with the 'You happy, I happy, both happy' relationship.

For such friends the,'friend in need was the friend indeed'.













In rare cases where the friend in need turns out to be a fool indeed,the giver might find it more tolerable  if it doesn't affect his own financial position too  much .Or if the receiver is still in a pitiable condition.








Things change if the lender is himself in need of that money and it gets more unbearable if the receiver spends more lavishly than the lender.









How can such situations be avoided? We may first assess the receiver's principles.Or make sure we have a hold on that person or have the transaction in the presence of a powerful person .When everything else fails, perhaps the best thing to do would be to convince ourselves that we have given it for a good cause{and eschew bitterness} and that  we may reap the corresponding type of benefits.





.All said and done, just as the planet Earth itself has more of life sustaining forces than destructive forces, so too the majority of humans are born or brought up with goodwill towards others.So let's not spoil our day dis-trusting others.

Let hope and trust rule...


OF COURSE WITH A MIXTURE OF WISDOM....