LOVE & NOT PRESSURE GROOMS A CHILD

I had once attended an interesting lecture wherein they asked us to introduce ourselves with an appropriate adjective before our name. Lets say for example Sweet Suhaani. What brought this to my mind after such a long time? A striking phrase ‘Pressurizing Parents’ which flashes through my mind very frequently.

‘Parents and pressure go hand in hand. Have you ever noticed how much we as parents take load upon ourselves and in turn upon our child to be able to give our best for their supposedly finest lives. No! We don’t see it, not at least when we actually do so. We noticed it only when we were children. All of us have gone through it when we were kids but still we find it convenient to forget.

We start this by asking our toddler to sing a poem in front of not one but every single guest that comes to our home. Then follows the most irrelevant explanation of this mean act: It is referred to as an effort to make our child forthcoming and social. 

Why ? did you and I,  who are all settled so amicably in the society with atleast 100 friends on facebook, did we do that willingly when our parents asked us to? No we all hated it. And secondly, why force this upon her when she is so young.

I too was a very shy person and look at me today, I love to be with people. Each one of us have an inherent quality. We may or may not do well academically; may or may not be people-friendly or be good at so many other activities. But that does not give us a reason to pressurize our child consciously or unintentionally.

There is a very famous saying’ A child comes through you and not from you.’ We must accept that there is a plan for every one on this earth and we must only be guiding agents to what they are and not catalyzing agents trying to force out the best in them.

Amidst all other things like topping in school, Peer pressure, Comparison with siblings, Milestone achievement needs a special mention. The unique thing about it is that this one starts at the age of three months only. Remarkably, this is a new kind of pressure mania we have started at such an age wherein a child does not even know or understand any word except mum.

Does that call for an applaud or does that call for some comprehension and insight?

I have seen parents getting worried about seeing their children spend their early years in doing nothing. What!  Is it nothing to be happy?  Nothing to skip, play, and run around all day long?  Remember, never in his life will he be so busy again and never so relaxed.

I know it’s easier said than done. I am myself a parent and its only with time I have realized: To explain or suggest is one thing and to pressurize is another. The best way to put across your kid is to set yourself such targets that she observes and learns from you. It will certainly not help to push her to eternity so that she starts shirking away from you and from his ultimate aim in life.

I think Joyce Maynard, American author, has put it very aptly ‘It’s not only children who grow. Parents do too. As much as we watch to see what our children do with their lives, they are watching us to see what we do with ours. I can’t tell my children to reach for the sun. All I can do is reach for it, myself.’

THE ART OF PERFECTION

Perfection is an addiction. Mind it, not just for the one who is a perfectionist  but also for the ones who are at the receiving end. Isn’t it hard to find seamless people and isn’t it nice to see them around you?  Yes it is because they deliver more than what you do; more than what you expect.

But a sweet little warning to all those perfectionists out there. Sometimes your impatience, your calm is bound to go tipsy, at least for a while if not always; you are human; then even your little mistakes are will be made to sound as blunders. 

Sometimes I pity with these people. All their lives they work hard every inch to get to that last level of excellence and when they fall even 1 % short, their conscience together with expectations of others  makes them miserable. There is a sequence of habits which go into building this chain of events. Such people start with enjoying precision and go on to become obsessed with it;  not knowing where to take a breather.

And I am not talking about the celebrities. I am not talking about icons like ‘The Perfectionist Aamir Khan’. I am talking about people around us. Sometimes it could be your mom, your boss, your husband, your child. So my one question to these flawless people: Are you relaxed? 

Don’t get me wrong here. It’s not that I am trying to say that one should not strive to be better. One certainly should but not at the cost of happiness. It does not pay to stretch yourself so much when it deprives you of the pleasure of doing it. It is important to draw a line. I have myself gone through something like this. 

In trying to be most efficient,

I enjoyed my work……

put in my hard work…….

worked too hard………

I slogged ………

I slogged harder……

I lost the charm of doing my work. 

So the graph went from fun to No fun.
"The thing that is really hard, and really amazing, is giving up on being perfect and beginning the work of becoming yourself." ; Anna Quindlen, American bestselling author and Journalist. 

 

Isn’t it perfectly worded. It may not pay you to be ideal, but it shall certainly pay to be yourself.

I am not sure how many of us are aware of the Pareto principle, more commonly known as the eighty-twenty principle or the law of the vital few. Business-management consultant Joseph M. Juran suggested the principle and named it after Italian economist Vilfredo Pareto, who observed in 1906 that 80% of the land in Italy was owned by 20% of the population. Any layman would understand that it is a common rule of thumb in business that 80% of your sales come from 20% of your clients.

Though these big organizations have enough number of workshops to induce this principle amongst their employees but there is hardly anything which brings to light this fundamental to the common people like us.

The way to go about this principle is optimization. First try to focus on the most important twenty percent effort that brings you the maximum results. That will take you off the stress, the constant worry and then you can choose to enjoy and do the rest.

 

So, while Pareto used this principle to observe wealth, business houses use it achieve sales targets, we should make an effort to use it in almost every area of work. 

My last word to all those who took out time to read this;

“ it is perfectly perfect to be imperfect a few times”. Think about it.