Why is Childhood Woeful?

Growing up, did you ever have an elder give you their complete attention?

Psychologists say attention is necessary for the emotional growth of a child. It bolsters our self-worth.

One of my chief complaints about my parents was that they never bothered to give me attention, or to listen to my stories. I remember being dismissed many of the time as 'saying nonsense.' When I didn't pick up fast enough what they were teaching me, they lost patience. When I slowed down miserably, they lost temper. Then it was Indo-Pak war.

After growing up, most children blame their parents for their personality defects. If only they had listened to me, if only they had let me have friends,..

I was no exception. I blamed my parents for my complexes, my insecurities, my lack of confidence -----------------until I had my own children.

The Infinitely patient super-parent

In the beginning it was a pleasure to explain lessons, ask to clean their tables and keep things clean. But soon I learnt that kids were also human. In fact, more human than adults, in that they took their sweet time to learn new habits, to study. In general, they just wanted to have fun.

Countless were the times when I threw my hands up on seeing new toys and school ID cards broken, shirts soiled beyond recognition, Were they taking a perverted pleasure in seeing my frustration?

And then I remembered.

Myself.

I never could remember a single instance in my childhood when I had done my work on my own initiative, of having taken any interest in studies, or keeping my things clean. My parents had a very tough time in getting me to study.

Why oh, why?

So was this payback? 

From the point of Karma, it very likely is. Everything that you had done has to end up somewhere, and the only logical place for it to end up is its source.

Talk about the cycles in nature. The water cycle, the food cycle, etc etc.

Learning to walk again

In many ways, training a child is like becoming a child again. Otherwise, you will not appreciate their situation and their difficulty in learning new things. Especially children who are differently-abled or are just not academically inclined.

You teach 1 to 100 to your six year old. But the next week, she is still stumbling on sixteen and sixty, seventeen and seventy, While the teacher is already onto multiplication...This may happen week after week, month after month, year after year...

It is easy to lose our patience and shout...but I remind myself this is what I am going to get back when eventually I may become a child sometime. If I am patient and tolerating now, I get it back.

Whatever I do, comes back to me.

If I lose it and shout, I'll be doing irreparable damage to the child's psyche. I've to be patient, and think for a better way to explain.

After all, that's the purpose of human existence...to solve life's challenges.