FUNDAMENTAL NO: 1 – TALK THE WALK
Having a child is like having a personal tutor! Yet we are always wondering whether this small human can be our guide. That’s when we need to come to terms with the fact that the child needs us to become who it is meant to be while we need the child to reconnect with our instinct and our intuition.
It became clear to me then that establishing communication with this new being was the only way I could never go wrong in my parenting! From this stemmed the five fundamentals of parenting that I have learnt.
Meenakshi Umesh
So, the onus of the work is on us. Though the inspiration is our child, we are the leaders! While I was looking at my first born on the fifteenth day, once I had recovered from the cesarean and returned to the farm, I realized that the baby was totally my responsibility! And there was no one to guide me! The few days that my mother was with me were frightening. She kept telling me that I need to check on the baby again and again. She kept telling me she needs to be fed every hour. And I was apprehensive all the time. The baby was also agitated and restless….
Then my mother left. And I was left with my baby alone on the farm. Myself, the baby, and the wilderness! I began responding to my child’s cry. I realized that she had different sounds for each of her needs. And I began to talk with her each time she made a sound. I began to decipher the meaning of each murmur. I soon became aware that the baby had completely stopped crying! She was calm, curious, responsive to each word I spoke.
It became clear to me then that establishing communication with this new being was the only way I could never go wrong in my parenting! From this stemmed the five fundamentals of parenting that I have learnt.
FUNDAMENTAL 1 : Talk the walk
We must communicate with our children. We need to tell them our plans and ask for their consent. We must share our thoughts and feelings. The belief that children cannot understand our problems is totally unfounded. Children communicate through feelings and absorb our vibrations. Words are not important. The sincerity with which the words are spoken is of much more value.
Till a few decades back, in fact till the book “Secret life of plants” by Peter Tompkins was published, people thought plants had no feelings or intelligence. Now it is a well-known fact that plants are intelligent beings! That the plants respond to music, mantras, touch, and will give up their life if they are not wanted.
Similarly, our children are old souls in new bodies! They are on their journey, and we are the beings they decided to interact with so that we can help them onward. They are also here to make us see ourselves through their eyes thereby giving us a new perspective of things if we are willing to learn. If we observe our children, we will learn that the process of learning involves the five senses which are being led by the instinct and intuition of the child.
The child learns about the world by observing, experimenting, imitating, and expressing.
- Observation involves the use of the sense of sight, sense of smell, sense of touch, sense of taste and the sense of hearing.
- Experimentation involves doing things and interacting with the world around us.
- Imitation involves mimicking the behavior of the living beings around them.
- Expression involves relating their experience verbally, by drawing and by role play.
The process of learning is continuous and self driven! And we have to allow the child to listen to itself and we have to listen to ourselves! Our intuition is our inner voice and it never goes wrong! And the same applies to the child! …. To be continued
