The little girl learning numbers and her mother…

The family of this little girl learning math has come out and spoken about the video and in this entire episode there is a strong message for teachers, schools, parents, families, society and the government. Its time we learned from this video episode:

For teachers and schools:

Why are open houses a platform where the blame of the child’s behavior or non-performance is passed on to the parents? Its time schools and teachers took ownership and realized that ‘they’ are the educators so they will have to guide the parents firmly, passionately and with a knowledge based on the fact that when you criticize a child to its parent, it wounds the ego and self worth of the parent who then is hurt and angry and removes it on the child. This is exactly what happened to this mother, the teachers were constantly complaining to the mother that the girl is naughty (if children wont be naughty then WHO WILL BE?!!) and that the girl did not know her numbers or did not do her work. Take ownership with the parents and say during open house- “ we have observed that your child  is very intelligent and does require some support while completing her work, so as her teacher I suggest that I will do the following in school to support her and you can do the following at home. Let us meet again and compare notes on what is helping and what is not so that we can change our method and make it more suitable to her needs.”

For the parents:

If a school complains about your child (foolish school!) it does not mean the end of the world. Your child’s first supporter is you and when you also go against your child and start getting angry, upset and stressed out then it leaves your child nowhere. Don’t do that to your child. Ask the teacher what she would like you to do and if the teacher puts her hands up and says ‘I give up’ then it is time to rethink about the school. Open houses are for sharing about the concerns that the school feels can come in the way of the child’s success and finding solutions together, not a blame game or passing the parcel! Open houses are a celebration of the child’s success in every domain and not an event for parents to dread or be bored of.

Stop blaming the child for its inability to ‘perform’ to perfection. When you compare your child to others, check the birth date of your child and the other child, you will notice there is a difference and during the first 8 years even a difference of a month makes a huge difference in the development of every child. So stop getting stressed by teachers and schools, choose wisely. This stress being put on kids is ‘pinching’ your child more than the high fees! 

Stop posting your child’s videos and photos on social media, be aware that everyone is not going to be looking at the video or photo you posted from your point of view. For many it would just be the ‘forward’ of the day, don’t make your child  a part of these ridiculous social media forwards however hilarious you think the video or photo is. You owe it to your child! Would you like it if when you are old and frumpy, your child posts photos of you unable to perform simple tasks or slipping and falling etc.? There is something called privacy…practice it with your child first!

Stop justifying child abuse (hitting, pinching, slapping, threatening) and start a non-violence policy in your parenting. I have seen many posts on parenting groups that it is easy to say ‘don’t hit your child’ but the child does not listen otherwise. Please remember the child is not ‘listening’ when you ‘hit’, the child is learning to be ‘intimidated’ with your brute force, which in the long term will teach your child to use intimidation with others or get intimidated by others (especially sexual predators).

For society:

Stop forwarding posts that come from your family..at least do that! Friends it is ‘social media’ and one cannot stop videos and photos from being forwarded once it reaches social media, it gets a life of its own. For all those who tried to give some conscience to those who were forwarding the video, good for you, but also stop the other videos of children acting funny etc. once a video reaches social media there is no stopping it!

Stop blaming the child and using sentences like- “why are you troubling mummy?” “why don’t you do your homework?” “see mummy is so upset with you” etc. because this will damage the self worth of young children and they will grow up feeling worthless and guilty. Stop putting the guilt on the child. Own up! Take responsibility. Stand up against violence and aggression towards children. Don’t condone it even in your homes.

For the government:

Stop turning a blind eye to the stress being put on little children in preschools in the name of writing, reading, and math. You with your silence are ensuring that these children are growing up with constant stress and grow up to be fractured youth. The foundation years are the most important and you with your silence and confusion about which ministry (women and child development or HRD) should define curriculum framework and guidelines of preschools in all states, are harming the future of this country. Let preschool education not be a concurrent subject in the states.

We have great hopes from this government, so please, its time to have a separate ministry for Early Childhood Care and Education so that schools stop doing this to children and parents. Please act before it’s too late.

To the mother:

I can understand the trauma you must be going through because of the amount of people pointing a finger to you. Don’t blame yourself. Blame the traditional parenting and teaching in our country. You grew up learning that and you are practicing it…not your fault. But I urge you to stop feeling guilty about the video or making your child feel guilty about it. This video has started a conversation and discussion in education and parenting circles and it will bring about change…I am sure. If you need to ever talk about or discuss your parenting issues, seek a mentor, don’t discuss with friends or family members who have no solutions, seek an expert. The Early Childhood Association is there for you, reach out to us by sending a whatsapp on 0981985512 (this is an appeal to all parents). We will help you, mentor you with solutions so that you and your child can both be stress free.

I was a naughty child too and my kindergarten teachers would always complain that I talk too much and cant sit straight, but look at me today, I am successfully using my ‘talkative’ nature to give lectures and travelling from city to city to help teachers, children and parents (cant sit straight!) and I had bad handwriting..today I type!. So your little girl will also grow up to be a successful individual only if you give her the support she deserves. Childhood is about being naughty, ‘not able’ to sit in one place and talking ‘too much’… because children are exploring the world, getting to know themselves and others and when you stop this exploration, you stunt their growth and make them aggressive, impatient, and unruly.

Wipe those tears woman, and go and hug your little girl and face the world and say, “yes, I erred and accepted, but what about you?” Because most mothers and fathers are doing what you are doing…the difference…their videos have not gone viral! We are there for you….and every child and parent.

Blue Whales, Pehredaar, Chotis and 1,2,3

What a sick world we live in, and we don’t realize it! We are surrounded by ‘pervertness’ and perverts because of which we have children being sexually abused by uncles, school teachers and serials like Pehredaar Piya Ki where a 9 year old is married to a 19 year old and they show their suhag raat! People watch this serial without any remorse which is leading to high TRP, isn’t that sickness that this kind of wrong content is being accepted by the audience? And what about the child actor’s mother? How did she allow her son to be used in such inappropriate content? What is this blind and senseless drive to make your child famous, successful and earn money, at what cost? It shocks me because the ‘subtle’ message that is going out to all sexual perverts is that it is acceptable for a child and an adult to have a relationship!!!

Sexual perverts, who rape girls and young women, chase them, hound them, and throw acid on them! We live in this sick world and either have no time to do anything about it or don’t know who to approach for the solution. So we have petitions, and marches and all, but have things changed? And then you have the other abusers- parents and teachers beating, threatening young babies and children. It is only a sick mind that can do all this and not feel remorse.

And how can we forget choti episode! Chotis being cut in the dark of night and spreading like wild fire, is it superstition? Or just a way to get free media attention? Who knows, but the more it is being reported the more it is spreading to other cities. I wonder what would happen if the media just stopped reporting about it? Let the police look into it if it is an ongoing crime. I feel the media should use precious broadcast hours to highlight real crimes and injustice instead of focusing on such choti news!

There is a video going viral on whatsapp of a little child who is being ‘taught’ by her mother/aunt/teacher (no idea) but the video is absolutely shocking and makes you cringe that a woman (where is the so called ‘motherly instinct’?) is threatening, slapping the child, all to make the child learn 1,2,3. The child is seen to be in a complete state of fear, depression and appeals to the woman to ‘please teach with love’ but the woman keeps terrorizing the child. As I watched this video and saw the child’s reaction flitting between violent anger and extreme helplessness, I realized that this child already has its future written for him/her, either he/she will grow up to be a child who will terrorize and abuse others or will grow up in extreme depression and take drugs or commit suicide. A wonderful life lost because of adult sickness.

And then we have teenagers committing self-harm and suicide because of games like Blue Whale. Agreed that teenage is a period when adolescents like the ‘high’ of taking risks but there is something called adult monitoring that parents and teachers should be doing to ensure that teenagers are not falling prey to self damaging habits. It is untreated depression and social alienation that leads to teenagers being addicted to drugs or online games like blue whale.

The common cause of all of these issues is this blind chase of ‘success’ at any cost.  Drilled into children from very young.  “Why didn’t you colour properly?” “Why didn’t you get full marks?” “Why didn’t you get the main role in the school concert?” And then start the comparisons, “your cousin’s handwriting is better than yours”, or “why cant you be good in math like your friend?” “Yash got into Harvard and you…” and ends with making the child bear the weight of your disappointment, “cant you do anything right?”

So when kids don’t get ‘recognition’ they try to get it on online groups, every human being needs ‘belonging’ and when the family, especially the parents and school are unable to do so then they find it in friends and to ‘belong’ they do all that their friends think is ‘cool’. Risk taking, logic, impulse control are all part of the prefrontal lobe- the thinking brain and it is this part of the brain that is not fully developed yet, hence teenagers need a calm, emotionally controlled ‘brain’ that knows how to communicate with them, but sadly we find teenagers brash, rude and tend to be brash, sarcastic and rude to them which drives them away…. to their ‘faceless friends’ on the net or social media.

Attachment is another key issue. Parents are quite attached to children till they turn 5, after that parents feel they ‘lost’ them to friends and so either drift away from them or try to ‘smother-mother’ them, both of which do not end well. It is important for parents to understand each stage of development and keep the ‘bond’ strong with their children, and then they would know when their children need them etc. In most of the Blue Whale cases the parents did not know about the child’s activity on the net. It means conversations and sharing was not there in the relationship because of fear of being shamed or shouted. Attachment is a term least referred to but is the strongest ingredient in the parent-child relationship. I appeal to all parents to have daily conversations with their children about what they see on TV or what is reported in the news, this will help your children see your point of view and will help you see theirs. Please remember that the parent is a child’s first counselor.

And the last culprit- screen parenting! From very early in life we are happy to pacify children, babysit children, and appreciate children with screen time. Children are growing up with listening to ‘screen’ voices more than human voices and no wonder they relate and react more to the screen voice that dictates to them what to do. Its time to move away from screen parenting and scream parenting. Social media is here to stay and we need to stop blaming it, it is a platform that helps in networking and connectivity. Just like we nurture children to understand how to make ‘real’ friends we need to educate them about ‘virtual’ friends too. It is our responsibility to make social media safe for our children. Just like we teach them road safety we need to cultivate ‘net safety’, just like we teach them etiquette we need to teach them ‘netiquette’.

Pehradaar, Blue Whale and the little baby being taught 1,2,3, are a revelation that today our society has lost its moral values.  When morals are lost with it is lost the ability to differentiate between right and wrong and that is what we need to give our children, the ability to choose between right and wrong and not accept wrong because others are accepting it. If we are blaming today’s youth for falling prey to Blue Whale then are not the adults falling prey to Pehredaar Piya Ki kind of serials?

Its time to move away from screen parenting and scream parenting, and time to make attachment and belonging the focus of our parenting and education and not success and failure.