From a parent’s diary
Children are CAPABLE
A small change in my approach:Usually when sessions are there after lunch, I keep reminding Advay about them and ask him to quickly finish whatever he is doing (most of the times, it is lunch). After number of reminders, I get irritated of the fact that how many times I have to remind him and why can’t he remind himself.Effect of SWA and parenting club (particularly this week’s sessions):Today, he was having lunch at 1:45. (Usually he takes an hour to finish lunch) I reminded him once, that at 2pm, there is a session. I put a battery to an old small alarm clock and kept it infront of him on table. And in my mind I told myself “I trust that he is capable to remind himself of sessions”. And then, fear creeped, “what if he doesn’t finish and goto session late and miss few things”. Then thought, “isn’t it part of learning? I need to trust that he is capable of learning!” So I was ok with whatever output..What happened after: I was free of irritation. He went to the session 3mins late…..
He was fearful of death. he was afraid of death of parents. At that point, I listened to him so much.. we talked about it so much.. every night, before sleeping, we talked and talked and talked a lot. Truth is, I too wanted to understand my fear (at this age, I have that same fear). After some time, it slowed down. I don’t know what helped him. Now, am thinking, may be, our talking helped him to understand his own fear…The same me, in another situation, acted differently. We saw a big moth in front of our house and I asked him to take a photo. He said he is scared. I actually got angry and thought that he is doing nakra… I was in total denial that he is scared of a moth! In my mind, I am screaming, “after staying in midst of green for these many years, you can’t be scared of a silly moth!!!”
I was scared that my son got fear of moth!. So, I made a lot of effort to understand. I explained him that it doesn’t bite. We saw the anatomy of a moth. We explored diffrent colours and textures in moth. How it is diffrent from butterfly. And many many more ways. Nothing helped. He still has that fear. Now, am realising that my approach was never to understand him, but rather to fix him…….