When this 11 year old came to me and said that his friend was ‘acting off too much’, I was wondering what happened, for him to say this!! My interpretation of this phrase is that his friend was ‘blowing his trumpet and showing off’ (one term begets another :-)).. Something made me stop this child and ask him what he meant by the phrase, ‘acting off too much’. He said, ‘He is just angry at me and jumping around’. This was a revelation.. My interpretation of the phrase and the 11 year old’s interpretation of the phrase was so different..
A 12 year old called another 12 year old a ‘baby’ and this offended him. When he went and told his mother this, she asked her son to call him ‘papa’.. One day, when the mother met the boy who called her son a ‘baby’, she asked him why he called her son by such names. Pat came the answer, “Aunty, he says that he wears diapers in the night and since only babies wear diapers, I called him a baby”. Baffled, she went home and asked her son about this and her son told her that he was just joking. It was an eye opener for her, as that was when she knew that there is more to it than what thought she understood; and perhaps more to it than what she heard from her son.
We call ‘today’s children’ outspoken and some of them are also branded as talking too much.. Do they talk too much? Or is it that they don’t know what to say and they use more words and phrases than they should? How much do we probe into what children say? Or rather how much do we probe into what children don’t say?
The more my interaction with children, the more I don’t want to assume.. I have started to ask questions, more to ensure that I understand correctly and so that I have not assumed anything. I have started extrapolating this to adults as well.. My mantra now is – When in doubt, clarify đ
Just this evening, I had two ‘just now’ turned teenagers ask me, “Aunty, when you were our age, did you like any boy?”.
I said, “I liked a film actor and I remember seeing his movie a few times”
The teenagers again asked, “We are not talking about a film actor. That is someone you don’t see everyday. We are asking about someone who you studied with”.
Dumbfounded at the clarity and articulation of the children I said, “I studied till college in an all girls environment and did not have the opportunity to study with boys. So I really don’t have that experience”.
These kids now had me hooked.. I wanted to know more about this and I asked them if they liked any girl. They looked at each other not really sure if they should answer my question or not.. Then one of them asked me if I would ‘tell’ to their parents whatever they give as an answer.. Quickly I shook my head to say no (don’t ask me if this was the right thing to do because I also don’t know; at that moment this answer seemed right). Then they said that they were attracted to a couple of girls in their class / school. When I asked them why they did not want their parents to know, they said, “If we tell them about this, they may remove us from this school and we don’t want that. They will also start watching us when we talk over phone to our friends and we don’t want that too”.
I have heard many a parent say; and why, I myself have said this to my sons many times (on academic aspects), “Even I have studied like you are studying. I also know what it is to go thru this period’.
Extending the same –
Have we not gone thru phases in life when we were attracted to someone from the opposite sex?
Did we not have a ‘crush’ on someone?
Did we not dream about them?
Did we not spend hours talking about our feelings to our best friend?
So why is it that when it comes to our children, we look at it differently?
Is it because we don’t want them to go through a tough time like we did?
Is it because we don’t want them to waste their precious life, at a time when they need to focus on building it?
Is it because we have seen the lives of a few friends go astray and we don’t want our children to face it?
Isn’t it healthy that they feel this attraction, given their age and the changes that they go thru in this phase?
So apt was this quote that I heard – we cannot be our child’s friend but we can certainly be friendly to our child.
This makes a difference to how a child looks at us as parents.
Have we kept the door open for our child to walk in and share with us what they are going thru, without them worrying about how we will react?
Do we know the many things that our child does not say in so many words?
If we do know, can we ask them directly or even discretely to start with and explore more to establish a bridge for them to share?
As a teenager so beautifully said, “I would rather my mother hears about the the fact that I like someone, than she hearing it from a third person about this”..
Has the teenager told the mother about liking someone and what was the reaction of the mother, I don’t know..
These few incidents have made me put on my thinking hat..
It certainly would help when we probe on what a child says and also does not say, to understand them better and journey with them meaningfully..
May 30, 2017 at 8:11 am
The contents of the blog are more potent than the passive tittle and warrant full compliments. The exhibition of not only the outspokenness of children but also the skill-full interaction with them is so amazing that I am sure, from whatever I could reflect on my own college day incidents, not one is anywhere near a match for what has been portrayed here! Therefore, I canât possibly make a statement âEven I have studied like you are studying. I also know what it is to go thru this periodâ with an exception of three incidents I was witness to rather than an involved person, which I would narrate latter.
The tempo builds up from the 11year oldâs to the teen ages, each adding its own charisma to the reader.
Now let us come to the most sensitive doubt, Do children talk too much? Of course, undoubtedly yes! Too much is only to mean, âbecause of the ever escalating exposureâ to the goings on around them and therefore that has to be qualified as âquiet natural tooâ. There is no use probing into because that will neither make the prober to equip himself/herself with anything to modify the âintensityâ, nor would it help making the questioner any wiser. Therefore it is of course right âmore the interaction with children, more the understanding them correctly rather than for inferring something or reading in between the lines and get hooked by their smartness.
The conversation with the teenagers is a clinching one to stand testimony to this fact.
Now let us come to the most interesting part, namely the questions!
Here I am sure, it is rather the environment, opportunities, exposures society behavior (parents and close relatives around) play a powerful role so overwhelmingly than the natural (?!) attraction the opposite sex holds, if I may assert from my own experience!
Therefore, no wonder all the four questions would get a negative answer, not necessarily from me alone but also the cases of a overwhelming number of my college mates with the exception of three I shall narrate latter!
One may ask, âit may be Ok in your case, but how sure are you of your college-matesâ? Yes, I am sure because of the âno restrictionâ we enjoyed from parents as well as teachers and we could move with friends so intimately and exchange what we wanted to share among us. None of the experiences (except the paltry three) was anywhere near âyesâ!
So why is it that when it comes to our children, we look at it differently?
The answer may be somewhat strange feeling due to absence of personal experience, but I would hasten to add we are lot better to come to terms with reality, much faster than our own parents would have thanks to our own observations latter in life!
Then that leaves only one important question âIs it because we donât want them to waste their precious life, at a time when they need to focus on building itâ? Of course yes, but that is again qualified or modified by the same remark of our ability to come to terms with reality.
Isnât it healthy that they feel this attraction, given their age and the changes that they go thru in this phase? Frankly what healthy aspect it will create given the fact that it could be short-lived, borne by the incidents which I will summarily narrate now!
The incidents of intense love that we witnessed in the case of three of our friends will state why I am saying so. The couples were so intently in love with each other of which we were witness to (donât imagine too much, we were allowed to witness only tips of ice-bergs), two in our post-graduation days and one in our office. The affairs were long enough to surely state that here are the cases of matured love, not on mere physical attraction. But believe me, the uproar it created at the parentsâ level (the mothers of the boys) in two cases saw to it that the affairs broke. One case it clinched luckily. In all the cases the love was between partners belonging to the same community and status would be even more baffling why it did not clinch except the mothers wanted their sons to marry the girls they chose! Yet the people involved are living happily, no need to say in both the broken love cases it is different partners!
Does this not cast doubt on the merit of the question âisnât it healthy that it is allowed to go through with the experience? Frankly, I am baffled! It is not only the boys, but also the girls who were erstwhile lovers are married to different partners, but there seems to be no iota of regret in the case of boys, though I am not sure about the girls, as I have no way of knowing.
Ă agree that does not negate the merit attached to the question we may not be our childâs friend but we can certainly be friendly to our child or Have we kept the door open for our child to walk in and share with us what they are going thru, without them worrying about how we will react.
âI would rather my mother hears about the fact that I like someone, than she hearing it from a third person about thisâ, nice statement to hear from the boy or the girl, but would the mother or father be of the same mental frame? Time alone can say!