Challenge of parenting is in Unlearning

Vast overwhelming majority of parents want what's best for their kids. There is no question that every parent shares this intention. But how they go about getting that best differs enormously. Some parents choose to do it in a way that may seem harsh or uncaring. But who's to say that, for those children at that moment, that wasn't the right way forward?

For instance, if you have read the recent Amy Chua's book "Battle Hym of the Tiger Mother", you will be surprised to read that Chua, the daughter of Chinese immigrants, who is a Yale Law School professor, drives her two daughters relentlessly. Chua’s rules for the girls include: no sleepovers, no playdates, no grade lower than an A on report cards, no choosing your own extracurricular activities, and no ranking lower than No. 1 in any subject. And her daughters are successful. And then you read about a suicide committed by a Bangalore girl because her parent insisted that she cannot get anything less than 92%? 

Which is a right method of parenting a child? Or is there a right method at all? The same question has been asked by countless management researchers, "Which is the best style of management'? As researchers found out, this is a wrong question to ask, because there is no 'one universal' method that is right for all situations.


Similarly, a parenting method is right when it is appropriate for a specific combination of culture (Chinese versus Indian versus American), talent of a child ( gifted, normal, artistic, intellectual), type of child (hyperactive, obedient, first child or second child), home environment ( parental background, nuclear family, joint family, working parents) and school environment (traditional, montessori, Waldorf or others). Based on this combination that your child is experiencing, you have to find an appropriate method. There is no one formula for all the possible combinations; you must find your 'unique' formula for the unique combination of your child. 

Finding the unique formula of parenting your child is not as daunting as it sounds. Working with a talented on-the-ground expert who can help you find the 'uniqueness of your child', over a period of 2-3 months, it is technically possible to find the right parenting method that suits your unique child. But there is one bottleneck that only a parent has to surmount himself! 

In my experience of coaching children, i have found that the biggest difficulty in finding the right method of parenting is not learning something 'new', but unlearning of your existing mindware. Our mindware consists of beliefs, heuristics ( thumb rules) and mental dispositions. For instance, we may believe that 'arts is a hobby, it cannot be a good profession', which may affect our child's parenting. We may adopt a heuristic to help us make sense of our child's behaviour. For instance, we may adapt a thumb rule that "if the child is not studying, he has less motivation" or 'if the child is not getting enough marks, he is not studying hard'. For some parents, it is this incompatible mindware which becomes a bottleneck in parenting their child.    

Because, while parenting your unique child, it becomes necessary to modify your heuristics, alter some beliefs and challenge some of your dispositions. This unlearning of mindware, if required, is tough for parents because it requires humility of accepting that you may be wrong, and then put in the necessary effort to learn something new. And both require time, which is in constant shortage. 

I have observed interesting cases of parents who could not unlearn their mindware and therefore could not 'parent' their children well even when they were keen. 

1. For instance, a Ph.D. technologist parent refused to believe that his 'child is more interested in English and arts than in technology'. Because he refused to acknowledge the uniqueness of his child, he could not help his child. 
2. A parent's heuristics (thumb rule)'that her child is bored only when the teacher is not good' stopped her from helping her child. She refused to accept that 'her child is bored with biology because he does not find it challenging'. 
3. One parent 'vehemently insisted' that his child should always study in the morning, because he said that 'morning is the right time to study'. 
4. Another parent could not help his child in performing well in exams, because he did not accept that he was increasing the anxiety of his child by constantly reminding him of marks.
5. One parent discouraged his child 'in studying Physics all the time'( despite his talent) because he thought that 'everyone should be multi-talented'.
6. One parent, believing freedom is good for child, gave 'too much freedom' and spoilt the child.   

Parenting is tough, because you have to 'change' your mindware to 'suit' the unique demands of your child. Unless the parent is willing to unlearn and change, the parent cannot 'parent' his child well. Good intentions of parent are not enough for good parenting.


In short, the real challenge of parenting a child is not learning 'the right method of parenting', but it is about 'unlearning' the mindware in time so that one can discover & practice the right method of parenting before it is too late. Timing is crucial in parenting; not giving 5 minutes of time to your child at the right time cannot be compensated by giving 60 minutes later to the child.

Why do parents compare and contrast with other children

Ragini, a primary teacher was telling me this story.

Ragini announced a drawing competition at the school. Some parents called her to ask who is going to evaluate the pictures. Some parents asked her the type of pictures the children can draw in the competition, some asked if they can use a 'premium colour pencils' for drawing or not. Some parents asked 'what are the prizes'. Ragini told me she was surprised with the parent's desire 'to outshine other children'. She complained 'why are parents constantly comparing their child with other child?'

Every parents knows that every child is unique and different from others. Infact they can narrate more than one ways by which their child is different. Despite this awareness, why are parents constantly comparing their child with other child all the time? There seems to be three valid reasons.

One, they use other children as a benchmark to judge their child's performance. In absence of any 'solid evaluation test' to evaluate their child in a specific activity such as drawing, they use comparisons to evaluate their child's ability in a specific area. Probably this is what some parents were doing at Ragini's school. Infact this is an ideal way of finding if your child is good in sports activities as well as 'artistic' activities like drawing or singing. Why is comparison 'good' for music and sports activities? They are good for two reasons.


Firstly, these activities develop at an early age, because they use senses and body coordination. Secondly, the output is visible to all and therefore comparable. For instance, one can easily listen to a child singing a song and compare if it is better than some other child of the same age. This comparison shows your child's 'advance' development of these abilities and can help you decide if the child can choose them as their talent zone. Infact because of these two characteristics of sports and music activities, comparisons and competitions are natural way of enabling children to grow their skill/talent in sports and music.

Two, some parents use comparison to motivate their child in action. In episodic routine activities where  child shows very little interest, parents use comparison to motivate their children. But these activities should be episodic in nature like cleaning the cupboard or washing the car. However, if you use 'comparison' too often, it loses its edge and shine sooner than later.

Three, some parents also use 'comparison' to motivate the initiation of child in a new activity; but this has to be done very 'sensitively' and 'expertly' like Ashna. 

Ashna had two children: one four year old son and another seven old daughter. Her daughter did not like swimming. However whenever she took her son for his swimming lessons, she took her daughter along. However she consciously avoided 'comparing' her daughter with her son in 'swimming' and let her daughter experience the 'contrast' herself. But her daughter's friends unknowingly praised her brother; even neighbours did the same. Ashna however avoided the comparison completely.  Slowly the daughter expressed her desire to learn swimming. 

Subtle and indirect comparison can be used to initiate a child in doing any new activity. Can it be used for continuing the activity? To continue to work with the  musical and sports activity, children themselves use 'comparison' as a benchmark in their talent acquisition, especially in the talent exploration phase of talent building 

But can you help your child to continue to work on intellectual activity by comparing his work with other children's work? Studying academic subjects like science, history or mathematics are intellectual activities of a child. It is difficult to use 'comparison' to motivate a child to work on intellectual activity because of two reasons. One, output of intellectual work is not visible ( and comparable) like work in music/sports. Two, 'test/exam marks' of intellectual activity cannot be used as used as a comparison benchmark because marks lead to wrong comparison.

Marks cannot measure child's progress in intellectual activity accurately, because they measure what the 'school' system wants to measure, not 'what the child is learning'. Because of the pedagogic method adopted by schools, marks measure the depth of intellectual work of the child only upto 10 feet. But, to acquire useful 'knowledge'(to build the vertical and logical chains of abstractions), the child has to learn upto the depth of 100 feet. Morever, as intellectual work matures much later than music/sports activity, the result of poor intellectual effort is shown at the later age.

More importantly, comparing marks of your child with other children is not helpful in determining the corrective effort required. As the intellectual effort is 'within the mind' of the child, one has to re-visit the child's steps to understand what mistake he is making. Only then one can guide the child in taking the right  'efforts' to 'correct' the mistake. Unlike music/sports activity, marks of intellectual activity are not enough for  the child into correcting himself.

Conclusion

1. Comparison (comparing your child's performance with other child) is a good tool to guide your child's performance in musical and sports activity, especially in the talent exploration phase of talent building.

2. Comparison tool could also be used to initiate a child in new activity.

3. Comparison is a wrong tool to guide your child in performing intellectual activity.Infact, because you are using a wrong tool, it produces unintended side effects like anxiousness and frustration in child because he is unable to do anything 'meaningful' with the comparison. In other words, avoid comparison if you want to help your child in excelling in intellectual activity.

How can you help your child to develop his talent

If you have understood the three steps of the unfolding of talent, you will realise that the process of 'growing the talent' starts only after your child starts working on a task. So what can you do now when he/she is in secondary school? And is it necessary to start the 'preparation' at such a young age? Let us delve on this.

In school your child is gaining knowledge. While gaining knowledge in school, he/she is acquiring 'abilities' which he can convert later into useful 'skills' that can be later transformed into 'talent'. Which useful abilities is he developing in school? Can we enhance his abilities better to help him? Can we plug the gaps in his abilities that he requires later to 'realise' his talent?

Child develops abilities through abstraction

Your child learns different subjects like science, history, geography or mathematics. While studying a subject, he mentally

• isolates 'parts' of a 'whole' , 
• understand 'parts' one at a time, and then 
• understand how each part 'depends' on other part ( or relate to each other) to help the functioning of 'whole'. 

This process is called abstraction.

For instance, while abstracting a topic of biology, such as human body, your child 1>isolates the 'parts' of 'whole' human body such as lungs and heart. He will then understand 2>what individual 'parts' do. For instance, she will learn that 'lungs purify blood' or 'stomachs digest food and extract nutrients from the body' and so on.  Then she will understand 3>how the different parts are 'dependent' on each other. For instance, although lungs purify blood they depend on heart to 'get' and 'pump' the blood to different parts of the whole body. Abstraction helps the child to develop the links in a chain that together help him understand a topic.

While the child is 'abstracting' different topics in a subject, he is developing abilities. For instance, while abstracting the subjects in biology he is developing his 'logical ability'. While abstracting topics in mathematics, geometry and algebra, she is developing her 'mathematical ability'. Some cognitive researchers like Howard Gardner** club the two abilities - logical and mathematical - in one ability. While learning the 'language' the child is developing 'linguistic' ability. Science subjects like physics and science refine the 'logical' ability further, by delving deeper in the 'parts', such as understanding the 'physical property' of materials such as 'material composition' and others.

However, due to the dynamics of knowledge development in school, not all children develop these abilities to the same degree. For instance, due to group-teaching of schools, all children are forced to learn every subject at the same pace and sequence. If a child fails to understand a topic/lesson for some reason, he falls behind the class, due to which he cannot understand the next lesson. As the child is unable to keep pace with the subsequent lessons in sequence, he slowly loses his interest in the topic. However as 'topics/subjects' are interrelated, it hampers his learning of another related topic. His overall growth of abilities gets hampered. As the child is unaware of this dynamics of knowledge development, he often misses opportunities to correct himself in time or to find different ways of building his ability in a different way.

Which abilities are nurtured by schools?

Schools do not promote all abilities equally. Today cognitive psychologists agree that school curriculum mainly focuses on developing three abilities - Logical, mathematical and linguistic - that can be developed later into a 'skill or talent'. Musical, spatial and body-coordination abilities do not get developed well in school, because they are poorly supported by schools. Therefore, if your child wants to develop these three abilities to a sufficient degree, they have to go for special coaching or special schools.

Some abilities like 'logical ability of extensive subjects' are either ignored or poorly taught in schools. For instance, subject such as accounting ( which is very useful in commercial jobs that are related to banking and accounts) are not introduced in a school, while subjects like Geography are taught 'poorly' in schools. Many students miss the opportunity of  developing this talent, because they are simply not introduced at the school-stage.

Some abilities, although crucial in life, are completely ignored by schools although they significantly influence the long term talent-development of a child. For instance, abilities like interpersonal,(enabling one to interact with others) and intrapersonal ( enabling one to manage one's self) are required by every professional, be it an engineer, lawyer or a doctor. These are complementary skills. Without them, even the basic core skill, say of logical skill of science, cannot produce desired result. Many researchers believe that these abilities are so crucial that professional today cannot convert his brilliant academic intelligence into a useful talent without them. For instance, Daniel Goleman insists that emotional intelligence ( which is part of intrapersonal ability) is even more important than academic intelligence!

Some school environments ( such as Montessori and Waldorf) are conducive enough to develop these two crucial abilities - interpersonal and intrapersonal - in your child. But traditional school environments are not ideal for developing these abilities. If your child is studying in one of the traditional school, he needs external assistance in developing these abilities.

Conclusion
In short, if you want to help your child ( who is in VIIIth to XIIth class) gain an extra step in fulfilling  his talent, you can take one or more of the following four actions:

1. Help him 'decode' the dynamics of knowledge development, so that he can develop the three core abilities - logical, mathematical and linguistic - to its maximum level! If he understands the linkage between 'abilities' and 'skills', he will know what 'tasks' he could possibly select in the future !

2. Introduce her to interpersonal ability: Being able to 'articulate' one's thoughts and communicate them to others is an important component of this ability. However, be aware that communication is often mistaken as 'talking', instead of 'listening'!

3. Sensitize him to his intrapersonal ability: Journey of managing one's self is a long journey; but it is better to start it early. Understanding one's emotions, stress buttons and choice triggers ( beliefs) are the three components of intrapersonal ability.

4. Give him a tool to 'synthesise' his multiple abilities into one 'whole'. He needs a tool so that he can 'catch his own fish', because only he alone knows what he 'wants'. Systems thinking is a well known tool that can serve this function.

** Howard Gardner calls these 'abilities' as 'intelligences'. Interpersonal and intrapersonal intelligence are two important intelligences in his list.

Encourage Imagination ( not fantasy ) in your child

Armaan, a father of 4  year old child, told me last week "I put my child in play school, because play school is helpful for child's imagination. Once he can read, I will give him comic books to fire his imagination. At the end, it is imagination that makes the child creative. Isn't it?''.

I think Armaan is confused between imagination and fantasy. Imagination makes the child creative, not fantasy. Let us ponder over this distinction and understand what is Armaan trying to do.

Children at the age of  3-5 are constantly asking us questions to explain things.  For instance, if we explain to the child that 'America is 12000 Kms away from Bangalore'', he cannot understand 12000 kms because he has not even understood the 'meaning' of number, although he can recite 1 to 100. Or if you tell the child that it takes America 'a full day and night to reach', he relates to his journey that he did last year to his grandmother which took a 'full day and night to reach' in the train. America remains 'unreal' to him.

But surprisingly, when the same child stands infront of a globe, where he can see "India' and 'America', he uses his imagination to 'sense' the distance, not 'understand' it.  Till then,  America is in the world of fantasy for a child, much like 'Alice's wonderland'. With the 'globe',  he uses his imagination to 'sense' the part of truth. With 'globe', he feels that 'America' is something 'real', although he has not 'seen' it as concretely as a 'car' or a 'bicycle'. Here globe extends the child's consciousness beyond the concrete, so to say. (As Dr Montessori says, parents and teachers require a special kind of 'training' to nurture a child's imagination.)

Imagination is bringing the object in the 'mind's eye', even though one has not seen it. When a parent tells the child about 'river' or 'mountain', the child can bring it in his mind's eye through the pictures and photos he has seen. It is not fantasy.

But when we tell the child the story of a phantom, he is engaging his mind in an unreal world. When he hears the fairy tale, where 'animals' for instance, speak to each other, he is in the unreal world. In a fantasy, anything is possible. Man can fly, animals can talk, fairies can bring chocolates from air. For a child below 6, whose mind is like a camera which takes on everything indiscriminately,  this creates confusion. He is unable to distinguish between what is real and what is unreal.  A child who cannot get the distinction between real and unreal world, for instance, understand why it is not possible to buy an ice cream at 1 o'clock at night.

Comics, fairy tales and cartoons create an unreal world for a child. This helps him 'fantasise' and makes  him 'imagine' impossible events and happenings. Imagination, on the other hand,  helps the child in seeing different possibilities while simultaneously anchoring him to 'reality'. A child sees "America" in his imagination', but he knows that he cannot 'fly' to America in a minute like a superman.

Imagination seems to serve three functions in the child's growth. One, Imagination helps the child to perceive 'what is not concretely seen' and go near  the truth, such as in the case of understanding "America'. Imagination helps the child to extend his mind's consciousness to learn faster, so to say. Here, imagination is the force to discover truth.

The second function of imagination ( and probably more powerful ) is to drive the curiosity and interest of child. When a child is told a story of  'How Land of India moved and created Himalayas thousands of years ago', his imagination is 'activated' to ask 'how could this happen' and learn Geography.  Or when the child is told that 'Caterpillar becomes a butterfly', it fires his imagination to know more about biology.

The third function of imagination is 'defensive' in nature. It helps the child escape the 'harsh' reality of the world for the time being and gives him 'hope' to go further. This function could be used for meeting different ends. For instance, it can act like a savior for a child who has to live in difficult conditions, either at home or in the society.

Going back to our original discussion, what helps creativity? Is it imagination or fantasy? Creativity is using imagination to see beyond 'what is possible' after understanding the 'current reality'. Scientific fiction writers, such as H G Wells,  are popular, because they help child see the 'realm of impossibility', while anchoring their story in the world of  'reality'. When the child's mind wanders in any direction without the anchor of reality, such child is called 'deviated' by psychologists, not 'creative'.

What would you advise Armaan now? Does a play school , beyond enabling coordination of movement, foster fantasy ( or imagination ) in a child below 6 years of age?

Do comics and cartoons help the child become creative after the age of 6 ? What do you think? 

Motivation is also temporary; you have to nurture it expertly

If you have understood why confidence is temporary from the earlier discussion, this will not surprise you.

Whatever the task, be it singing, solving a mathematical problem, or writing an essay, when the challenge of the task is just higher than the 'capacity' of the child, the child is highly motivated. When it is too high, the child becomes anxious and will not feel 'motivated' to do the task. He will avoid the task. When the challenge is too low, the child is 'bored'. In other words, the child to be motivated, should have a challenge which is just 'above' his capacity at that time.

But as you would have guessed, no sooner, the child performs the challenging task, one or two times, the challenge from the task is gone. The motivation is also gone. Now boredom sets in, because there is no challenge any more. This is why the child will play with a toy and throw it after a day. Motivation for the child rises and drops all the time, depending on what he is doing.  To expect a child to remain motivated all the time, is a wrong expectation.

Instead, if you understand why motivation rises up and down, you will be able to help your child. When the child does not want to study a subject, either he is bored ( because there is no challenge) or because he is too anxious ( because the challenge is too high). Your first step therefore is to understand why he is not studying.

You have to ask him some questions in a proper way. If you make a mistake, he will clamp ( not speak). Also note, that if he is anxious, he will generally 'avoid' talking to you because the child does not want to accept that he is finding it difficult to do the task. One idea is to talk to his friend. Or ask someone ( with whom he has a different relation) to find, such as his grandfather/uncle.

After your investigation, if you understand that the 'challenge' is too high for the child, you have to help the child. Please help the child without hurting his self-respect. For instance do not tell him ' How easy is this?" Or "Anita can do it so easily. Why can't you'? Instead empathise with his anxiety, by saying something like ' I understand how some things are difficult to do'. If you want your child to come back for help next time, you have to ensure that you respect him. While helping, you have to just 'fill' the gap and help him surmount the challenge; not overcome the challenge yourself.

On the other hand, if the challenge is too low for him, then your remedy has to be different. You have to give him a similar task with 'increased challenge' to keep him motivated. If a task is well-defined like in music, dancing or sports (the A&P talents), this is easier, because any musician will tell you the 'next challenge'. But if you are performing a cognitive task, you have to find a subject expert to help your child find another challenge in his subject. That is why 'special teachers' are necessary to keep the flame burning in your child.

Or you have to find a good school that 'recognises' this need of a child and 'fulfills' it. A traditional school teaching all children in one classroom will generally not be useful; a Montessori school is ideal. As a Montessori school typically has mixed age-group of children ( 6 to 9 or 10 to 12) in one class, your child can 'pick' up increasing challenges from the older children, if he learns fast. And when the challenge is too high, your child requires 'individual' attention. Once again, Montessori school is helpful, because every child is 'coached' individually in Montessori school.

If you however do not have a good school around your neighborhood, then go ahead and find a  specialist in 'child development' to guide your child. It is worth the effort.  

Here is a puzzle that you can solve now:

Why does a musician generally grow in a family of musicians? Or why does a sportsman grow in the family of sportsmen? 

KBC quiz does not test your knowledge

I do watch KBC quite often on Sony TV. It is a TV show where people can become millionaires by answering 'tough questions' like "which is the longest rail bridge in India', 'which cricketer won the Arjuna award in 2011' and so on. It is an indeed a lovely show to test your 'data-retrieving ability' and earn 'money' from that ability.

But 'data' should not be confused with 'knowledge'. It should be remembered that the journey of talent building starts with 'data'; it does not end with data. In the journey of building your talent, 'data' classification is the first step. The next steps are data > information > knowledge > raw working model > Skill ( mature working model). And it is the combination of skills that help you develop the talent, be it in singing, mathematics or programming.

Data > Information > Knowledge

For instance, when you hear that software company like TCS has a turnover of 2.1 billion in a quarter, this input is Data. Not useful by itself. So you add context to the data to make it useful. This becomes information. For instance, if i tell you that the turnover of its competitor Infosys was 1.8 billion in the same quarter, this data becomes more useful for you. Data with appropriate context is Information. You can view data from different windows of context. For instance, if i tell you that the turnover of TCS in the previous quarter was 2.5 billion, the data assumes different significance. Information therefore is 'contextual'. Smart people use 'multiple' contexts to make the data useful to them.

On the other hand Knowledge is 'information with why'. Knowledge deepens your understanding of the subject. For instance, when you want to understand why TCS turnover is low/high this quarter, you  gain more knowledge of the subject. For that you will have to get more information, such as the amount of turnover of TCS this quarter from North America as compared to Europe? Or the turnover of TCS  from Banking domain as compared to say Telecom domain? The journey from Information to knowledge is driven by your desire to understand 'why'. You have to view the same data from different 'windows' and gain more understanding of what that turnover means.

Knowledge > Skill

The journey till knowledge can be covered by sitting in the arm chair. Next step in the journey - of converting knowledge into useful action - requires active working mode.

For instance, imagine you are a share broker or business analyst. What action would you recommend to your client-investor on the basis of 'turnover of 2.1 billion last quarter'? Should he buy more shares of TCS or sell them? This skill is based on how you 'process the knowledge' into action. For this processing, you design a 'working model' to understand and predict the share price; one of the element of which is turnover.

When you are inexperienced, your working model is 'raw'. It is based on few elements with thin interconnections between them. With deeper 'understanding', you add more elements to your working model and also connect them 'densely'. Your working model improves as it starts reflecting 'as-is reality' of share price in a better way. With further deeper understanding and reality-testing ( both are required), your working model matures. Now you are called a sharp 'share analyst'.

This is the skill stage of talent building. It may take years to reach this. Some fail to reach this 'skill' stage because of the inherent difficulties in 'reality-testing'. One can read research papers and model to incorporate 'more and more elements' in the model, but all that is useless until you can 'test them' in the reality appropriately. If the model is not reflecting reality, we say that the person's knowledge is 'theoretical'.

Imagine, that instead of a share analyst, you are a manager of Infosys of telecom domain. In that scenario, your working model has to be developed with very different elements. This working model therefore is highly individualised and has to be developed and reality-tested by every individual for his own 'action'.

It has also been seen that talented individuals do not possess more data; they possess more relevant knowledge, that is better working model. For instance, when the pieces on the chess board were placed randomly, it was seen that both amateur and professional chess players remembered position of about 14 pieces on the board. However, when an actual chess board of a live game ( in between) was shown to amateur and professional chess players, professional chess players remembered all the pieces on the board, while amateurs could remember half of the pieces on the board.*


Conclusion

As your child is still studying and developing his 'knowledge', you are more concerned in helping your child develop his journey from data > information> knowledge. A skillful teacher can help your child build this chain better.

And because we build knowledge from one level to another in a chain, not understanding arithmetic in the 5th class creates difficulty in understanding arithmetic in 6th class. At this time, your child needs individual customised 'guidance' to identify and rectify his chain; not a coaching class that teaches the entire class of students. Later, we shall see what skillful teachers do differently.

From the above discussion, you would also appreciate that a coaching class may help your child get better marks, not necessarily gain better knowledge, because the actions for gaining more knowledge are not similar to actions for getting more marks. And remember, both are necessary: marks for short-term, and knowledge for long-term purpose.

You would also appreciate now that Internet only presents 'data' to your child. To convert that data into knowledge or action requires a huge degree of effort. Please do not ask your child to surf internet to decide which discipline he should choose in his life, because internet just provides data on different disciplines, not even information.

* Talent is overrated: Geoff Colwin 

Do you really care for your child?

Please see this example of how a doctor cared for her patient.

Saraswati was pregnant with her second child. She had pregnancy- induced diabetes causing her to go through a very tough regime. Last week she was admitted at Mallya Hospital in Bangalore because of her labour pain. She was admitted at 5 am in the morning.  

At 7 am, when the pain became too difficult to bear, she requested her doctor, Dr Shalini  to do Cesarean section. Dr Shalini acknowledged the request and continued with her efforts to help Saraswati. At 9 am, Saraswati's husband again approached Dr Shalini to relieve Saraswati's pain. Dr Shalini explained all the possibilities to her husband and told her why C-section is not necessary. When her husband, after seeing the continuing screams of Saraswati, again approached Dr Shalini later at 11 am, she firmly reminded her husband that she is a doctor, not her husband. 

As the afternoon progressed, Saraswai's pain increased. She hurled abuses to her nurses. She almost twisted the hand of her husband as she continued to fight the pain by holding the hands of her husband. She tried again and again to talk to Dr Shalini. Dr Shalini continued to firmly say no and remind her that she was in safe hands. By evening, Saraswati had stopped asking help from Dr, Shalini

At 10 pm, after 17 hours, Dr Shalini took Saraswati in the OT and delivered a baby child without doing C-section.

When i met Dr Shalini next day and asked her how could she withstood the continuing barrage of requests, solicitations and even veiled threats of her patient to relieve pain by using short term measures, she simply replied ' I really care for my patients'.

Being involved in helping parents and students for the last two years, it is rare to find a parent who truly cares for his/her child. Instead, I often see parents who are too eager to help ( helping child too quickly when the child is struggling to tie his shoe lace), who do not take the tough decisions helpful for the child ( such as not watching TV), or firmly saying no to the child's request of ice-cream in the evening ( because you feel guilty for going to work and leaving the child home!)

I have seen parents take seemingly difficult one-time decision, but do not have the self-discipline to practice appropriate behaviour with the child. For instance, two months back i met Sudha  who left her well settled job to ensure that her child is not put to day-care. But Sudha was unable to control her worry when her child did not eat food at 12 pm. She started force-feeding the child. Now her child of 3 years, who has never learnt to sense her own hunger, makes Sudha dance around for 1 hour to make her feed. Despite taking the tough decision to leave the job, Sudha finds it more difficult to maintain self-discipline in her daily actions with her child.

Why do you think Dr Shalini can practice this self-discipline, while Sudha could not maintain hers?  Even if Dr Shalini had acceded to the request of Saraswati and performed the operation, no one would have faulted Dr Shalini for her action. Infact she would have even got paid more for doing ceaserean. And,despite the honest intentions of Sudha, why is she unable to put them into practice?

One of the biggest difference between Sudha and Dr Shalini is the difference of subject knowledge.  Dr. Shalini has the 'right knowledge' to take a decision and stick with it, while Sudha is not sure of 'what to do and what not to'. Sudha's knowledge of child development is insufficient as compared to Dr Shalini's knowledge of 'child delivery'. How can Sudha gain the required confidence in her daily actions without acquiring the expertise of child development herself?

Sudha, as you would have guessed, should find an expert in child development and rely on her knowledge. Like Saraswati found Dr Shalini and then 'trusted' her to take care of 'child delivery', Sudha also should find an expert on child development and trust that expert to take the right decisions for developing her child. 

With the help of an expert on child development, Sudha will be able to avoid the mistake she did with her child and not get sucked in the ''downward spiral' of her child's behaviour. She will know for instance that TV and video games are the least useful gadgets that impede child's development. She will also know the 'exit paths'. For example, when the child gets stuck with a behaviour, she will be able to find a way to 'break the spiral' of the self-defeating behaviour of child.  Sudha will know that teaching 'language' to her child requires a different strategy than teaching child to develop qualities like concentration and patience.

In other words, despite her good intentions and one-time decision, if she really cares for her child, Sudha needs to find a consultant in child development who can guide her. Do you really care for your child?

Post script: When i asked Saraswati next day what she felt, she replied " In the first pregnancy which was done thru operation, i never experienced the birth of my child. Thanks to Dr. Shalini, this time, i could experience the feeling fully. It is very very different. I would have missed this if Dr had listened to me. And i would not have known what i missed. I wonder how many things we miss in life, but we never know. Life is really queer.".