Only Me ruchi: Do You Trust Your Kid?

Only Me ruchi: Do You Trust Your Kid?: Do You Trust Your Kid? The answer to my question would you be an instant one from most of you – “of course yes!!” I seriously doub...

Do You Trust Your Kid?

Do You Trust Your Kid?

The answer to my question would you be an instant one from most of you – “of course yes!!”

I seriously doubt that though, for what I am referring to is much larger than just a question that can be answered by just an answer. Think again.

Okay, let’ go back to your childhood. Were you trusted by the grown-ups that mattered? Were your opinions considered valuable? Was a decision ever made trusting your instincts even though you were only a child? How was the reaction of your parents or the significant others when you said you would like to be a scientist who could invent a car that could take you to the moon? What happened when you wore your birthday tiara and said one day I am going to be the miss universe…?

When we talk of trusting our children we are not really talking about just the everyday matters of telling the truth or the little lies that childhood is made of. It’s how much confidence you show in them, their thoughts, their dreams and trust them like you would any grown up if they talked about their dreams or career goals.

The simple thing is confidence breeds confidence and trust breeds trust. This is not only true for our relationships and life in general but is particularly critical when raising kids. They have better senses than maybe 10 fully grown men put together [yeah, yeah, I used “men” intentionally, women of course have much sharper senses anyways  J ] Kids can quickly sense your reaction and that would have a lasting impact on their memory for the rest of their life and would be crucial in shaping their personalities too – so watch out if you are faking it!!

Another simple thing would be to ask yourself, how did you react when the child wears a new dress or gets new shoes or dresses up with effort for a special occasion – do you just say a few good things and move on, do you give a whole lot of speech on how wonderful they look but don’t really mean it entirely…  Do you board the values train and enlighten them that they should really not focus so much on their looks and worry about the real things in life!

I get it, we all say we love our kids and no matter what they wear or do we love them unconditionally. That’s not the point here the point is how you show them that affection and how authentically you do so.

For instance, I know a certain parents who love their kids just as much as any other perfectly loving parents would but at the same time preaching that it absolutely doesn’t matter how you look. You have to focus on your values, your belief system, respect for elders etc. etc… the good stuff in life. As adults you’d be glad that this was the philosophy one grew up with... However, think of this child’s confidence every single morning getting dressed for school, college, work, date, or probably the most important day of his/her life… it’s ruined. He looks in to the mirror and convinces himself I am this average or below average looking person who needs to be good at a zillion other things but should not worry about the way I look…. That’s not true!! The overall package of being confident has to do with everything, the way you look, what you believe, how you present yourself and over all what do you think and believe about your own self!!

It all starts fairly early – Do you listen to the little ones when they are describing their day at the preschool… a crayon fight or boy being too boyish that the little girl couldn’t handle..? This probably is setting ground that when they are teenagers would they like to share their concerns with you or not.

The way you react to their stories is extremely important too. Are you too short with them… or do you let them finish their stories and let them tell you what really happened..?

Think of it this way, when you walk into the office of this awesomely awesome doctor that you’ve got an appointment with a lot of trouble just because you think he/ she is the best of the best. Even though you know this doctor is “THE” one, when you reach the clinic, you would by all means like to tell your story, share your symptoms and some of us the more smart ones like to share with the doctor their own little research and the prognosis & diagnosis as well. What if this doctor after your 10 seconds of talk time tells you exactly what’s wrong with you, writes your prescription and sends you away!!

As much as one would agree that this doc maybe totally right and hitting the bulls eye in treating you – you would be strongly disappointed cause he did not hear you out. He did not let you tell your story your way. This isn’t a surprise; most great doctors I have come across are like this. It’s the experience and knowledge together that somewhere drives them to be a bit arrogant.

Now this is exactly what the awesomely awesome parents do too. We all love our kids way too much to let them through any hard times. We know them too well and can quickly figure out what’s wrong and what they need to make it right!! We want to create short cuts for them, avoid any possible bad experiences for them and in the process what we do is tell them that they are wrong and we are right. In the process we somehow end up giving this doctor like 10 second judgments of their stories and their experiences and impose our thoughts onto them. The result being that the kid would start doubting not only their own thinking and processing capabilities but would also doubt if any of this is worth sharing with the – Oh so learned parent!!

You as a parent will learn to trust, learn to show confidence in your child for them to be able to build these qualities in them to make them their personality. If they trust you on something and share it in total confidence with you, don’t share it with your friend or neighbor just to prove to them how much your kids share with you… If you are in conversation with your kids let them finish it and tell you what they think really happened there rather than jumping the gun and giving them a verdict… if you trust them on smaller things when they are tiny and truly share the joy of the impossible dreams of maybe making a staircase to Mars may be someday they would be able to trust you with more realistic issues in life. That’s when you would get your true chance of being able to tap into your wisdom and experience and share your thoughts with them. That’s when your guidance would truly matter!!

You demonstrate Trust to your kids and they would learn to trust others… You show confidence in them and they would believe in your confidence and live a much stronger, stable, Confident life…!!

 keep reading...

RK

 

Dear Diary...You Messed me Up!!

Lately, I have been pretty absorbed by the idea of positive energy and negative energy. I am gradually getting more and more convince that all good in life comes because of all the positivity in life and all our bad thoughts results into bad experiences. Hence, anything that dwells on negativity will always lead to horrible experiences and life events.

I remember growing up with tons of Hindu mythology stories that somehow have stayed with me longer than I thought they would and are gradually becoming more and more meaningful in my own weird ways. One such stories mentioned that the household that carries the book “Mahabharata” will always be in chaos and fighting – just like the way it is in the book. This is pretty much in sync with what we hear from the various Feng Shui & Vaastu experts – the nature of energy in your household is directly related to the kind of literature & art work at home.

Good books and good stuff at home will encourage positivity – just as a clutter free home would. This is logically true as well, a cluttered house would be a breeding ground for germs and diseases and a dirty environment is known to lowers our brains functionality, thus making us depressed, anxious, sloppy and nervous.

Coming to the point of this post now –

We’ve all at some point in time written a diary a journal a letter to our own self or whatever else you call it. So what do you write in your “personal” diary? Actually, let’s take a step back. Who are the folks who believe in writing a diary? Well, as we all know, the typical ones would be the ones who claim to be absolutely uncomfortable sharing their thoughts, experiences and their feelings most importantly, with another person. When the burden of their feelings, grows beyond what they can handle they resort to expressing it to the famous – “Dear Diary”!

This is very confusing to me, you are advised to reduce your burden of the bundled up emotions by secretly writing them into a diary that stays within your locked up space. In my understanding that’s like a bundle of negativity that I keep in my bed side drawer. Think about it, when do you write the diary – when something so upsetting so bad is happening to you in life that you are not able to share it with anyone – no one at all. So basically it’s the darkest form of bad energy that we neatly describe in words and keep it safe in our homes.

We have all since ever been encouraged to keep a journal. My 6 year old has one too. Has anyone ever told us what to write in it, was there a rule book about these journals? No. Since we were told that this is our personal space that we do not have to share with anyone, we ‘assumed’ we could use this to vent our emotions. Interestingly, I am yet to come across a lot of people who use this diary to write only and only great & wonderful experiences of life.

Most people resort to diaries when there is no other resort left.

Point is, if you really wish to feel better and the things that are so personal & are bothering you so much, the things that are so private, why not write them with a positive twist if it has to stay in your home. Why make it a page of Mahabharata that would bring in all the negative energy to your life. The concept is not to stop writing a diary, but not to make the diary a holy grail of all that’s bad in your life. Even if writing all the mishaps of your life made you feel better, there is no reason why you should have a ready reckoner of those mishaps at your disposal at all the times. It’s like killing all your worst enemies and keeping the corpses in your closet..!

Write, oh please, of course write your journal and I encourage my little boy to do so too but write about your dreams, what’s good & worth remembering and documenting. If something that was a bad experience how about you try to get over it and not document it for future reference.

This diary thought lead me to yet another concept. Think about that one person in your life who lately – in the recent past or present is that one person you have been confining too much into. Think sharply, this may not be your best friend. We all have those friends who have been around us forever. The special ones we speak to once in a while but they know you the best and don’t demand your presence or attention every day yet are there for you when you need them the most and then there are those who claim to be your most dear friends but they always have an agenda.

The one friend you have been confining too much and lately sharing too much about all that’s making you miserable could be an altogether a different kind of friend. I like to call them the “bitching buddies”. They are present everywhere – office, home, family, neighborhood, gym, grocery store… every damn where!! If you check closely the conversations you have with these people you might not be discussing your career aspirations or your other futuristic developmental thoughts, they probably are not your best financial advisors too. Then who are these “Best Friends” who you talk to more often than your real friends and you can share all your personal mess with them so conveniently, so seamlessly…??

These people just like your dear diary are the suckers for bad energy, the gossip mongers and the hub of all evil! They attract us like magnets on days we are low on self-esteem on the days we feel like the center of all the miserable hell holes of life. They have a skill to make you think and talk about all that’s bad around you. You could write a book with them on the annoying neighbors, the demanding jobs, the problems in school, children, marriage, and in-laws even the economy in general! They are experts in dragging you into this amazingly negative conversation where no matter what great mood you were in they would eventually get you to bitch about something or someone that reassures you that – “well!! your life is a mess!!”

The funny thing is you would feel great talking to these people, as you get lured into believing that finally you have someone in life who understands you, who knows you are awesome but just surrounded by horrible people and unmanageable situations. These are the only true friends you think you have who understand the poor you – ‘the victim you!!’

Well, victim yes, but not of circumstances but of these negative energy generating hubs.

Another cool thing about these kind of “friends” is that they keep changing – you might not be bitching your gut out to the same person since you learned to bitch,,,

Bottom line whether you are talking to yourself in the secret way of writing a diary or your are sharing it with your bitching buddy – as long as the content of this sharing and ventilating is negative no good is ever gonna come out of this. If your expression is of something sad the feeling with it and the outcome reaction of all this will eventually make you sad.

Things in life will at some point go wrong, the more you talk about something going wrong in life to your so called best friend the more you are inviting negative energy in your life. Think about the process of this sharing you’ll know how logically you are building up ground for more bad stuff…

-        You think about a bad experience  - makes you feel bad

-        You talk it through in your head – makes you feel bad

-        You talk about it to your bitching buddy – makes you feel bad

-        You analyze the bad experience with your buddy – makes you feel worse

-        You have done so much repetition of the bad experience that now there is no way you can forget it – you will continue to feel bad

-        You feel bad – you go back to your bitching buddy cause you feel bad

-        To assure you that you are awesome but it’s the bad experience in life that makes you feel so bad you both together repeat it, discuss it again and then continue to feel bad….!!

You see… this never ends!! It can never end!

All good bad ugly is part of life, what would you like to focus your energy on is all that would make the difference… Choosing to be positive will not come to you naturally; you’ll have to make that decision daily.

That’s why the saying – Good things happen to good people!

 RK