Its back to school shopping season! Labor Day Sale!! I can feel the fall season breeze permeating my being, which is another way of expressing how summer is bidding us farewell. I remember back in the days trying out various outfits at the mall for a new school year. Both my sisters would nod their heads left and right or up and down. I remember coming out of the fitting room with a striking outfit and my sisters nodded up and down, I was compelled to say with hands on my waist: “Am I hot or what?!” To which my sister’s little one in his stroller repeated: “Am I hot or what?!” We all had a good laugh about it and went home.
Lo and behold, that little one when changed into his pjs that evening, came to me with both hands on his waist and said: “Am I hot or what?!” Again, we all had a good laugh about it until the next morning, when we changed his outfits, he said: “Am I hot or what?!” Now, the situation got a little out of control because the little one’s grandma was not too happy about this as if it was my fault. Look, I did not deliberately teach your grand-kid anything, I was just being me. What about the mother, why would you bring the little one into the ladies’ fitting room in the first place?!
What does this tell us? It tells us a lot. First of all, our tools and senses are given to us to collect data from our surroundings in the universe. From a very young age, the two sensors that we are given in the form of human eyes serve as means to capture and gather information. Human beings are made in a way where we tend to pick up behaviors and habits from our surroundings. Can we control the surroundings? No. What can we control then? Processing the data that we gather; does it align with my human disposition or not?! In the case of the child, s/he does what s/he is supposed to do i.e. observe and learn. It is not necessary to do any direct instruction to the child as s/he learns from what s/he observes. Plain and simple.
A young adult needs to go one step further from observing and learning to questioning the meaning behind something. Example: why do you say or do what you say or do? Does uttering a specific statement awaken your human conscience? Does wearing that outfit make you hot? Can your human disposition or human conscience confirm that? Why do you want to be hot (again in the context of our example)?
A parent needs to go two steps further where whatever s/he does need to be set up as an exemplar for the child. The child looks up to the parents as the first line of educators. Yes, the parents are the role models for the child. The child sees how the parents behave, do things and accordingly pick up habits or register it. However, most parents quickly lose that credibility because they become “uncool” for the child. How many teenagers think that they are too cool for you?! Go figure! A recent incident with a child pinpointing his auntie or uncle to his/her friends. “That is my auntie performing that stunt over there.” “Wow your auntie is so cool, can I spend the next week-end with you folks again?” And the auntie is thinking: “Lil boy, I am cool for you because I do not officially live with you and I am not your mom/dad at your service 24/7.” WHO SAID THAT PARENTING WAS EASY!? Yes, it does increase your responsibility and you must be more conscious of how you act so to set up an example for your child with the hope to instill in him/her on utilizing his/her given tools (human qualities) effectively, as a result of which s/he can makes sense of things for himself/herself as an “individual”.
Parenting should become easy if the parents are conscious of themselves and are mindful of how they react to situations which are picked easily by the conscious young kids. The values one holds will be observed by the kids who may later on evaluate and see if it makes sense. One will be surprised at the learning and picking up of things by kids from their parents.
So, what can you teach your child then? Bottom line, you cannot teach anything to your child. They are quick to learn and pick things up on their own. Just like in that case of the auntie, if the child thinks that you are “cool enough”, then s/he will look up to you ?
Finally, let us leave you with the following saying from Imam Ali and a poem by Khalil Gibran that explains it.
- Imam Ali: Do not force your children to behave like you, for surely, they have been created for a time, which is different to your time.
‘On Children’ by Kahlil Gibran
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.
They come through you but not from you,
And though they are with you, yet they belong not to you.
You may give them your love but not your thoughts.
For they have their own thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,
which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them but seek not to make them like you.
For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.
You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are sent forth.
The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,
and He bends you with His might that His arrows may go swift and far.
Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;
For even as He loves the arrow that flies,
so He loves also the bow that is stable.