Walking back home in Alappuzha after dropping off her young daughter, Chethana, at school Usha Venkatesh had plenty of time to think. Of how the idea of school made her young daughter unhappy, about how there would be other children like her made miserable by their experience of school. In her stories she told her daughter school was a special place of discovery.
The place of discovery was turning out to be more of a bad dream. All the thinking led her to starting a school – a bright and happy place – Brightland Discovery School in Alappuzha, which recently completed 25 years.
Born out of this experience is her self-published coffee table book, Magic of Childhood . She has distilled her experience as a parent and educator in this book. Guilt, lack of imagination/creativity and communication are among major parenting pitfalls. “And parents do listen when kids talk to them. The mother would be busy in the kitchen and the child would want to talk. She’ll tell the child to talk and she would be doing something else. You should take time out and listen to her/him. They are looking for cues.”
A tip she has for parents is to walk the talk, “practice what you preach. No bad language – don’t use any. No lying – don’t lie. And don’t pile on expectation on the children, they react adversely to it when they grow up” The book, she hopes, might help parents negotiate the parenting circus.
All these years later the memory of the first day of her school has her in splits. “All 15 of them started crying at the same time and I didn’t know what to do.” She remembers her husband’s reaction at the time and is grateful for his immense support over the years, especially during those initial hiccup-riddled years.
Her school has grown. Usha confesses she has no academic expertise on children. But what she is particular about is that faculty at her school be attuned to the needs – emotional too – of ‘her’ children. It is her experience as mother, of Chethana and Krish, and of growing up as a loved child. “Even when I was very young, I knew our parents treasured us,” she says. Married at 19, she had her daughter soon after. Being a young mother she bonded with her daughter and over the years is more of a friend to her children. Attitudes to parenting and children are different from those days, she adds.
Inspiration to write the book came from her daughter’s friends. “I was shocked to hear them talk about their children as if they were burdens. That is not what children are. Imagine the child who grows up listening to this?”
The book is her endeavour to prevent such accidents. To buy the book and/or for more information log on to >Usha Venkatesh Foundation .
