5Ghaziabad, Wednesday, December 9, 2009 plusCity

You may give themyour love but notyour thoughts. For

they have the i r ownthoughts'. (On children) -Gibran

In nuclear families today,the children are the centreof their parents' attention.Parents love their childrendeeply, but sometimestheir communication withthem ge t s mudd led .Overworked and over-stretched, the parentsoften demonstrate signs ofdisapproval, impatience,or indifference in theirinteractions with the chil-dren. They play a multi-tude of roles with them:sleep monitor, cleanlinesschecker, homework prod-der, educational guide, andthe list goes on! And asthey juggle these roles, thepersonal bonding that theyshould share with the chil-dren tends to give way tomechanical and ritualis-tic relationship.

In a tech-savvy world,and helped by a plethoraof 'how to manuals', mostparents often try to repli-cate a behaviour that theyassume would yield max-imum advantage in thebest interest of their child.

The fine tuning and judi-cious precision that is socharacteristic of assemblyline production, governsall tenets of good parent-ing. However, what itexcludes is any under-standing about individualfeatures of children thatmake them what they are.The sheer insensitivity ofparents is visible in theway they see their wards'achievements as feathersin their caps with scantregard to child's personalfeelings and aspirations.Most parents pin theirhopes on children and tryto fulfil their dreams vic-

ariously, thus exertingpressure on delicate sen-sibilities of the children.

Every child has differentneeds and concomitantpotentialities. As scrupu-lous parents it is impera-tive to identify individualdifferences by keepingcommunication channelswide open and providemotivational atmospherethat helps nurture theirinherent talents and notconstrain them. IQ is nolonger restricted to bril-liance in academics, butin the light of currentresearch in multiple intel-ligences, the true import ofintelligence has beenenlarged to include differ-ent kinds of Intelligence. Achild could demonstrateflash of brilliance in anyfield like music, language,sports, art, dramatics etc.,and reach a level of per-sonal self-sufficiency.

In highly competitivesociety children often suf-

fer from lack of confidenceand any inadequaciesleads to destructive behav-iour in them. Parents needto give constant supportand unrestrained love todevelop their greater senseof self-concept and confi-dence in their children.

—NIDHI SIROHI

PRINCIPAL, KOTHARI

INTERNATIONAL, NOIDA

Let a hundred flowers bloom

PARENTING

As parentsit is impera-tive to

identify individualdifferences bykeeping communi-cation channelswide open andprovide motiva-tional atmosphere.

“