PRESS ARTICLES

Source: BUZZ

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My daughter will be giving her ICSE exams on March 1st. I know we are supposed to be relaxed and calm and not get all perturbed but that’s easier said than done. Is there anything other than superficial thoughts that will help us as a family cope better?
Mrs Kumar

Yes, superficial positive thoughts like, ‘Xth standard is not the end of the world’, ‘If you can dream it, you can do it’, etc., are mere palliatives. They do little good. What I would like all parents and their children, who will be giving their SSC and ISCE exams respectively to do is get a philosophical, ideational, attitudinal change towards these examinations and see them for what they are – a tool to take you to the next level of career options. I would hope that the goal of most of us is to be happy and healthy. By getting a perspective that happiness and success have no link and scoring marks is one facet of life but not total life, will help us be unruffled and poised. I am not in any way suggesting a callous approach of ‘It doesn’t matter’ but rather a more realistic approach that the luck or ill luck of our life doesn’t depend on one exam. If you can really believe this and teach it to your kids, do you think any of you would be perturbed?

I am afraid that my son loves his grand parents more than he loves me. And am afraid that my working and keeping away from home is the cause for this. However, practically I cannot give up my job and need the finances to support a life-style that we don’t want to change. How do I assure that this doesn’t happen?
Anxious Mother

It seems you haven’t understood the concept of love correctly and have some questionable views about it, thus you’re so anxious. Remember first, that there are different kinds of love – parental, friendly, romantic, etc. Love for a grandparent in no way will reduce or compromise the quantity or quality that a child can/will feel for a parent – they are mutually exclusive of each other – both can exist and with the same intensity. Your work has nothing to do with the fact that your son will love you less because again you believe that non-working mothers are always loved by their children – a very debatable premise. Yes, young kids tend to stick with those who look after them. They have an ‘Out of sight out of mind’ outlook because for them the caretaker is the satisfier and since kids are short-term pleasure seekers they remember the person who satisfied them at that moment. You also seem to have a very poor opinion about yourself and about your ability to love and be loved. Work hard on your questionable attitudes and develop more sensible ideas to help yourself be more assured. 

My daughter is in the tenth standard and I am afraid that her love life is coming in the way of her being able to be full hearted in her devotion to her studies. She and me are having severe difficulties because of this and she has even threatened to run away from home. I am really upset and do not know how to handle her. Please help.
Mrs Ahuja - Bandra

This is the time when the hormones are raging and as a famous adolescent psychologist said, it is the period of storm and stress in these teenyboppers life! She is grappling between love on the one hand and the pressure of studying and concentrating on the other. Unfortunately because love is made such a hue and cry of in our hypocritical and ‘unnatural’ society and maybe with you adding to the trouble with your erroneous ideas we literally drive our children into boys’ arms! Take a step back and ask yourself some serious and sensible questions about your daughters’ indulgence. If you pull her back and harass her with statements like ‘He’s a bad boy, He’ll do you no good, etc.,’ you will literally create an aura around this chap and she will out of senseless rebellion dive into him even more deeply. Instead, take in your stride these ‘affairs’ as ‘normal’ and without blowing them out of proportion you will help her be comfortable with love, which in turn will propel her to focus better.

My son is three-years-old and is petrified of doing potty on the pot. He is trained in the sense that he does tell us when he needs to go but insists that he will do it only in the pamper but not on the toilet. We have tried everything from talking, to scolding, to entertaining him on the toilet but to no avail. Can you throw any light on this?
Concerned Mother - Colaba

This seems like a classic case of fear. And none of us are born with fears, we learn them. And since we learn them we can also unlearn them. The common fear at this age is of being flushed down the toilet. Maybe your son fears that. Talking to him gently without blaming or condemning or making fun of him will be good advice. He obviously has an irrational idea which we need to get to the bottom of and which we need to alter. The very fact that he doesn’t mind passing stool in the pamper it is obvious that there is no physical pain associated with the act. Did anyone frighten him, threatening that they would do something when he was on the pot? Did he ever fall in while attempting to sit and thus avoids it? These are some fundamental questions you will have to ask to be able to rid him of his fright.