Empathizing with a child!
Desh Bir
It is often that we find a kind of rare bliss in the company of a small child, because he has that which we don’t have—the faculty of looking upon things with an awe and fondness which made Wordsworth the immortal poet that he is today.
The child’s mind is ever flitting like a butterfly from one thing to another and he doesn’t know the art of getting and spending which adults tend to master as they grow worldly wise. That makes the child akin to an angel.
Yet, we the elders in the family fail to look upon the world with a child’s eyes and thereby cause much hurt to the little one by forcing him/ her to adhere to our version and vision of things. Henry Vaughan’s poem ‘The Retreat’ amply brings out the angelic aura around a child’s world.
The parental eagerness to force down the child’s throat all the wisdom they seem to find in regime of formal education imparted in so called elite schools , starting as early as at the age of two and half , actually leaves the child baffled and stilted as he is pushed ahead in a direction which doesn’t really attract him.
The child would find stories in quivering leaves and flying birds. He views a message in the hues and tints of the wings of a butterfly or a parrot, a peacock or a kingfisher. The sounds and sights that irresistibly may pull a child’s attention may often be disapproved of by the parents. A stick can be a sword; a pebble can be a diamond and a tree, a castle! It is a period of eternal bliss. When all the wars are over, while other things may be tarred and charred, the butterfly will still be beautiful.
It is the age of liveliness. An age of dreams! An age of flight! An age pervaded by fairies which seem to be real! An age where Santa Claus seems a reality and makes the child a firm believer in a benevolent God,
Compared to the child, the grownups are complicated creatures, full of quirks and secrets. To a child his mother is a goddess, however harsh she may be at times. Yet, he is repeatedly told to be wise and obedient and compliant and someone like the neighbour’s child or a cousin or a classmate who is cited as a model. For the poor kid it is difficult to swallow a pill of this kind.
Why doesn’t a mother understand the child’s mind when he says, “Mom , you are the best ! It is okay even if you scold me.” A child feels cheated when the teacher or the mother or siblings fail to understand that he is an explorer, a researcher trying to evaluate the world with his own tools. Eternity seems to wrap the span called childhood because Childhood is the kingdom where nobody dies.
In the presence of our children, we turn into stiff and stern parents while the truth is that all of us are always five years old both in the presence and absence of our parents. Why don’t we look upon the child through its own eyes and leave him alone to have the best fun in the things he likes and loves. Why not let him laugh boisterously as he watches cartoons and cry ruefully when his favourite toy falls to the floor and is broken?
Albert Einstein says that play is the highest form of research. Then, let us allow the child to conduct his research without our crippling interference or sermons. It is not our job to toughen our children up to face a cruel and heartless world. Our job is to raise our children who will make the world less cruel and heartless. This can be done by allowing them to find themselves and their potential. We should only assist them without crippling their faculties to explore things.
The ever complaining parent would seem to grumble that the child is taking too long to grow up and perhaps he is doing it just to annoy him /her. It is rather terribly harsh in such cases when the child has the feeling that his parents are almost going to kill him. That leaves very deep scars on the psyche of the poor thing called a child. Elders need to remember that everything is ceremony in the wild garden of childhood. Let us admit that we are all refugees from our childhood. People never grow up; they just learn how to act in public. It is fatally easy to make young children believe that they are horrible. Let us not perpetrate on the child what we might have received as our share in younger days. Let us empathize with the child and not force him into fast track adulthood. He will miss the joy which only childhood has to offer!
(The author is a Retired Principal, Govt. College, Hoshiarpur , Punjab)
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