Many parents believe that a pat on the back helps develop character — if given often enough, early enough, and low enough.
To shatter such popular misconceptions, Round Table of Vijayawada organised a workshop on ‘Better Parenting’ that enabled the participants develop a fresh perspective on the key issue.
Admitting the universal fact that rearing children was a serious business, the resource persons said parents do not have to fret and fume or feel overwhelmed or overcome all the time. “There is a sense of humour about the whole exercise; only thing you need to identify it and enjoy situations,” they said.
City-based psychiatrist Vishal Indla urged parents to nurture and celebrate their child’s uniqueness.
Unique
“Every child is unique and has a set of capabilities. It is for the parents to identify and nurture this talent,” he said, quoting Albert Einstein’s famous lines: “Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”
He said that parents should allow children to pursue a career that suits their interest and strengths and lamented the shortfalls in the current education system -- laying emphasis on the left brain development such as math and logic, at the cost of the right brain development which involves imagination, creativity, arts, and intuition.
According to him, there are no bad children or bad parents, only bad parenting.
Interactive
Life coach and NLP trainer Satish Govindan, who took over the session for the next couple of hours, spiced it up by making it participatory. He engaged the select gathering of parents in fun activities to drive home his point. Lacing his talk with a liberal dose of humour and punctuating it with interesting anecdotes, he struck an immediate chord. Elaborating on which side of the brain is used for different activities, he said every child has distinct style of learning. The workshop was a fund-raising event to achieve the Tablers’ slogan of ‘Freedom through Education’.
