To Save The Paper Or To Save Creativity, This Is The Question

The new generation is far more environmentally aware than we ever were. They are born in a time after 'the Inconvenient Truth'. We had water crises even when we were kids, but there wasn't enough consensus on the means to save the environment. But today's kids, all thanks to Al Gore, know not to waste, like never before. Save paper, save water... oh! The world is wailing under human exploitation, and children of today seem to be saving every bit of it that they can, in their own little ways. My little one will run to any dripping or open tap in public and turn it off. She cannot bear the sight of water leaking. If she hears me honking while driving, she will protest. She is the first to remark about a plastic grocery bag, if I dare to take one, that is. 

Save paper!!! How? We express through it! Unless the entire future generation forgets to write and only types, onto holographic keyboards, projected from their tiny wearable or implanted devices. But what of origami, painting, art work and the rest? How far can we take the save paper drive? It hit me on the face, when conducting a session with kids on 'Expressing Oneself'. I asked each kid to tear a piece of paper from their notebook and do whatever they felt like, with it. In a group of five, two chose to make an Origami art, two others drew on their pieces of paper, a natural instinct. One nine year old, wrote her name and introduction on one fourth of the page, leaving the rest blank. And I was tempted to ask her why.

She said that, those who made origami had wasted paper, this was the same response from those who chose to draw on the paper. Regarding the artwork she was not sure, she just thought of writing because, "it is a better use of the paper" that was a young conservationist talking. I gathered that this mind-set needed to be further explored. I grabbed one origami and one art piece in my hands and waved it at them next to each other and asked them, which seemed to be a waste of paper at all. The kids looked at them all keenly for a few seconds. Their most discerning thoughts at work in those moments. Only then it dawned upon them... that both drawing and origami were basically an art form, expressed with paper. Each one completely expressed the artists' feeling or thought. I then asked the kid who wrote the introduction, why was the introduction only on a quarter of the page, did she have a plan to use the rest of it too...? She had understood the point and so had the others. In times to come, I hope each one of them will confidently express themselves using paper, in any way they wish.

The question is, how do we judge wastage of paper with kids? They need complete independence to use the paper the way they please. Why push them to use it in one preferred way and to ignore the others? A piece of paper once written on or drawn on or cut into an art, is a used resource. Most of those writings are not really used, a large volume of them are practice material, rough draft etc. Largest volume of them are not stored, after they are used for their intended purpose. The most amount of menace is caused by fliers and advertisements, the fancy gilt edged multi page ads from the builders and developers causing the maximum amount of damage. Somebody must stop them from damning the papers. Our stereotypes about the best usage of paper may only hold our children back in their imaginative drive and from being an 'out-of-the-box-thinkers', that each of us wish for our children to be!!

I have a seven year old conservationist at home. But I get bogged down by paper fans all over my home, and paper boats and paper cuttings of tickets, passes and the works, and paper cards and invitation cards, oil pastel on paper and crayon and colour pencil on paper, even some stories and stencils, and not to forget paper stars. Sometimes the unguarded exclamation escapes my lips, 'do not waste papers'!! But now I know I should refrain.

For a seven year old, every bit of paper is being used. They do not have the concept of misuse as yet. I know she is not tearing them wantonly, she is making art out of every bit! Those artworks may not look that mature or useful to me, but to her they her expression at its best. And to me she is the most important ingredient of the environment!!

Dear Readers, these are my observations and learning from being a mother and from once-upon-a-time being a kid myself. Please share your feedback and thoughts. Please also read "It is Okay to Cry"

Its' Okay to Cry

My 7 year old had come back from play crying, within minutes of going out, she had been a bit unreasonable and her dad had grounded her for the evening. She could not bear the thought that, playtime had just begun and she would not get any of it that day. Added to the fact that we had returned from a three week vacation, just three days back and this was only the second day, that she had gone out to play since our return.

I heard the whole story and felt she did need to learn a lesson, but she kept crying inconsolably. I feigned disinterest in the matter, leaving her dad to deal with it. I thought that a short while alone in her room, would appease her and then we could play some indoor game, it usually works with her.

For a few minutes I forgot all about it, when my friend called to chat up with me. She was whimpering now and I was sure she would be quiet and 'talkable' any moment. Only to be drawn back to the bummer with her cry getting louder and louder, to draw my attention ofcourse... by now I was quite sure that a grounding would not teach her any lesson today. I strongly believe that, consequences should be given with the child's understanding and consent, and it is certainly to be 'handled with care'. I realised that this was no time for playing the mute spectator, in a matter that concerned daddy and beti. Instead it was time for me to play the mediator, the tailor bird, if you will. She was upset with her dad and vice-versa. This was an "abra kadabra moment..." when mom comes into action and plays magical tricks.

I excused myself from the call and went straight to the little one...I call her 'chiku' lovingly, besides many other other cute and adorable pet names I have for her. I offered her an option for a truce.

"don't play with friends chiku, lets just three of us go out for a walk." I offered.

"But I want to play with my friends," she yelled.

"But you do agree that, what you did was not right?" I asked calmly.

"But I forgot that is why...," she tried to rationalise.

"But you agreed to it some time back, didn't you?" I rebutted, gently but firmly.

"But I want to play with my friends." She persisted.

"Lets first go out... and you stop crying." I offered helpfully, with a glass of water.

She agreed and so did my husband. Once out, she kept her distance from her dad and she told me again and again that, she was sure he will not allow her to go and play with her friends that day.

'Be positive." I said. I had made up my mind to persuade hubby to let her go play. Because this whole experience was very distressing for her and she would only resent it for long, that was not going to help.

So I raced her..."catch me." I shouted and ran off, she chased me, and she is indeed a fast runner, she caught up with me and then raced me a bit. We were quite far from her dad, who was approaching us at a slow pace, he is always amused at our 'catch me' games, so we chatted as we sauntered...

"Do you think crying will help?" I asked, as she was again building up tears in her already puffed up eyes.

"But I know papa will not let me play." she retorted.

"How will crying change that?" I quizzed.

"But I am sad Mamma." she replied quite simply.

"But even when you are sad you can smile, can't you?" I debated.

"Why?" She asked quite surprised.

"Because when you are crying, you cannot think or solve your problem." I explained.

"Should we not cry Mamma?" She asked...

That is when I realised, that we were not totally on the same page, in this conversation. I did wish she would stop crying, but it was not my intention to make her think that, she is wrong in crying when she feels sad. 

"Crying and feeling sad is not bad." I corrected myself.

"Then we can cry?" She asked, relieved a little, but quite puzzled at my sudden change in stance.

"Yes, you can, but when you are crying, you cannot solve the problem. You need to wait till you stop crying and then solve your problem." I explained, now desperately trying to make sense to her.

"But I know Papa will not let me go to play with my friend, what is the point in trying to solve this problem." She responded, lugubrious and at the verge of tears by the end of her sentence.

"Why don't you try being hopeful and ask Papa." I suggested, honestly feeling a sigh of relief, that this discussion was coming to an end, for the moment. I quickly signaled my husband, who had caught up with us by now, to permit her to play if she asked.

"Papa...I want to go play with my friend." She said in a small voice, with little hope, some fear and a gnawing anticipated disappointment.

"Okay..but come back in half an hour." He said, much to my relief and to her disbelief.

"Didn't I tell you," I reinforced, "If you are hopeful, you can solve your problem!"

She was now smiling and was her normal chirpy self already. "Yes Mamma." She agreed... and ran off towards her friend's house, without further ado.

The questions of "should we cry or not," lingered in my mind. Should we or should we not... Where is the question of 'should'? We don't wish for the tears, they just come. They are part of us, just as much as the tongue, the eyes, the skin and also as much as the breath.

Let me put this question to you... Is crying bad?

I think that... our feelings, whatever they are, protect us, when we know how to control them. They harm us when we can't control them. Children are not old enough to control these emotions, but understand their helplessness vis a vis these uncontrollable occurrences... angry tantrums, tearful eyes, restlessness, banging up doors, even inexplicable sadness...

No, sadness is not bad, nor are tears, or even anger. The sooner we teach our children to connect with these feelings, the sooner they will learn to tackle them. I believe that, all feelings - happiness, sadness, excitement, affection, jealousy, greed, guilt, disgust, anticipation, apprehension, anxiety... they are all part of the personality. If they learn that now, they will gladly tackle them and make them their friends. It is disconcerting for parents to handle their children's anger, meanness, selfishness, dislike, contempt, sadness, guilt and such other feelings, which do not seem very positive. It is equally disconcerting for parents to handle their own mood swings. No matter how daunting the task, rather than to let our kids just find out, on their own, the ugly feelings growing within them, and for them to detest it, we must assist them to make peace with them. Does anyone know a person who is complete without them all...?

Our Little Chatterboxes

My little girl chatters all day at home... with us, with her friends, with her nanny. Sometimes she even calls a friend's parent to check if her friend can have extra playtime with her. There is no inhibition or lack of communication when she is conversing with family, friends or close acquaintance. Bring her in the presence of strangers, she clams up. Take her to an unfamiliar surrounding and all you hear are whispers. I have tried asking her why, she avoids responding. The fact is, she does not know the answer to it, herself.

Last year when she appeared for an admission interview in a school,  she refused to answer any questions asked by her school principal. She just kept quiet... we thought up all drastic consequences on our way back from school. We asked her why she did not speak? After some persuasion she said, "don't you always tell me not to talk to strangers?" I underwent a feeling of deja-vu... haven't we seen this repeated in that famous Lays Chips advertisement? To cut the long story short, she did get the admission!

We often complain that our kids do not express themselves well enough. We keep entreating them to speak up, we even use consequences sometimes, to try to make them speak. I began wondering why are some children less verbose than others? Is that a problem? What are the solutions?

For once I realised that kids who speak less are extremely observant. They are the ones who know their friends' likes and dislikes, very well. They know how to deal with difficult people. Quite often they are loved by their teachers, even the most demanding ones. This is because of the sophisticated social skill that they are developing, by keeping quiet and observing. They know and believe in the maxim, "Words can kill". And they practice it. You will find these children getting hurt by casual remarks, because they are careful with the words they choose, They expect the same of others. They are not old enough to understand different personality types as yet.

Speech is an expression of thoughts and feelings. But all of us adults know that most of those thoughts are expressed not in words... children know that too. Because the very first communication of a child is non verbal, with cries. So a lot of times, kids become avid observer of expressions, as they are smart enough to already know that "it is the expression that counts".

How then do we make these sophisticated individuals to speak? Specially if they choose not to? Definitely not by asking them to speak. First step is to ensure that they are not quiet out of fear caused by some personal trauma. Because that may need professional help. But if being quiet is just a personality type of the child, then it has to be dealt with more inclusively. I.e. accept it. I feel we must trust the child to know what is right for her.

But there is a lot that can be done other than directly pushing the child to converse. One path we can take is to make them more aware of expressions. Let them know what these expressions and feelings are and what they look like. Let them connect with their own feelings and expressions. Chances are that very soon they will identify peoples traits faster and therefore will be able to strike conversations with strangers much sooner than they did before.

Another activity that can help, is to make the child aware of the non verbal communication. This way she will know that even when she is not speaking, she is communicating. As a result she would know how best to use her non verbal skills. Because no matter how verbose we are, it is the non verbal skill that really speaks first. It is the first impression and the lasting one too.

Children are experimenting with their environment in their own unique ways. We can speed up their experimentation by providing them with the right tools, they may choose to use them, they may even choose not to use them at all. Whatever the outcome of our efforts, we cannot restrict their experimentation and still hope for them to grow up into confident, unique adults. 

Masks

Sometimes we find ourselves wondering why we are not understood. Sometimes it becomes a taboo. Yet we are people following our heart. And we are bound to do different things.

You know me and you know me not,
The masks I wear are just a sham,
Can you really look beyond?

I am not cool, not calm,
I am not outrageous, nincompoop,
I am not profoundly sublime,
I am not restless or subdued.
I am a bit of it all and more.
But most of all I'm misunderstood.

And I do care, I care that you knew,
I do care, I wish you to know,
I wish that my care for you,
Will be reflected in your view,
I wish you knew, I wish I do,
I am not just what you see,
I am much more, there is more to me.

Sham one moment, one moment true,
My masks are as thick as I may wish,
Yet what do you care, what mask I wear?
I care for you, does that not mean?
My "care" is not a mask for sure,
Why do you want to know much more?

What is your doubt? That I don't conform?
I don't do things the way you do?
What is it that bothers you?
You do defy sometimes, I do too.
My defiance is not the same as yours.
I blunder, badger, harry, irk,
So do you, but for other things.

So who judges who defies better?
Who blunders better or irks supreme?
Who judges please tell me who?
I care not how you perceive,
I care for you to judge me not.
You need to know, I care only for your care,
I do not bother with your quirk.

Pinafore or T-Shirt!

Coming back from her school, just one week after her new school started, my daughter announced, "Mamma, tomorrow we have to wear colour dress to school."

I checked the diary, there was no mention of it and I gathered from her classmate's moms, that other kids did not know anything about this. Prisha must have misunderstood some conversation in class. But try as I might, to find this out, she was only becoming more defensive about it. 

Prisha's new school is too finicky about uniform, I would be surprised if they made such an abrupt announcement regarding dress code, this early in the session, without a written communication to parents. And that too for six year olds.

We did not choose her school for the uniform after all. We chose it because, this is one of the few schools in our city, which does not have exams for children till fifth standard and focuses more on character building than on academics in the early years. Uniform came in the package. Just like us, Prisha accepted it as a small compromise for an otherwise good opportunity. 

I had the option to simply ignore her and to tell her to wear her uniform. But I realised that, up until now, in preschool, Prisha always wore what she wanted to. I would never stop her, unless she wanted to wear a wet T-shirt to school, I could not influence her choices now, just because her school prescribed uniforms. She needs to discover it for herself, and take her own decisions. 

I could have asked help from other moms too. They would be more than willing to find out, what the misinformation was all about. I refrained... Prisha has been right most of the time, when she brought these important messages home from school. She is quite responsible in this matter. Is there any need for me to now doubt her and ask others for help? Is there no way to figure this out in a different way? I kept asking myself.

I could see this was my opportunity to do something different. I decided that, whatever it takes, I will let Prisha do what she believes is right, but I had another concern, what if her teacher did not understand and said something that might hurt her or worse break her confidence? With all that in mind,we went to sleep. 

The next day was Wednesday. The day when children wear sports uniform in Prisha's School. In the morning, as I prepared Prisha's lunchboxes I was still unsure of whether I was doing the right thing. I woke her up and put up her regular sports uniform in the bathroom, to see if she still remembered. She did, "Colour clothes today Mamma" she announced.

This was it, she had made her choice. 

"you can wear whatever you want Prisha, just make sure that, if someone says, you were wrong, don't get hurt, we all make mistakes" I said, 

That sowed a seed doubt in her, though that was not the objective, "Mamma, why don't you call my teacher and ask?" She asked.

"I don't have her number" I responded very matter-of-factly.

Prisha suggested further, "What about my friend's mom, ask her."

And now was my chance, "But Prisha, your friend's mom would know whatever your friend said to her, why should I trust your friend more than you?" I asked quite casually.

The smile on her face was enough to tell me, that the rest did not matter. She was thinking, she understood this was going to be her decision. 

She was doubtful now. I asked her to recall the exact conversation regarding colour clothes, which took place the previous day, in the class, I knew the clue was there. Wednesday is for house colours in her school. There may have been a conversation on "House Colour Dress" Like most schools Prisha's school has 4 houses with 4 different colour shirts. Prisha was now in doubt if that was indeed the case. She decided to wear her Wednesday uniform, 

Overwhelmed with the experience, and satisfied with the way our conversation went, I was happy that her new school uniform played some constructive role in my daughter's life, other than being just a garb. I know that today, I have taught her to be a more attentive listener and a better decision maker. It is not my job as a parent, to make sure that my daughter is right all the time, it is my job to tell her what is right, when she errs. It is for her to right her wrong.

Jaunt

My jaunt is here, else I am naught,
A speck in the universe barely noticed,
Some warmth, energy that I emit,
The flesh is just for the time being,

If this is worthwhile, I do not question,
I could be simply what I really am,
Feed flesh to flesh, animal or plant,
Feel the un-felt, touch, hurt and loss.

One lets go the other goes on,
Till it is time to let go, to make way,
But the speck that one is, remains,
A spot of energy in the endless domain.

The jaunt is for peace, or to break it off?
The fire in me is undying, self satisfied,
I have no need for endless spearing for food,
I can just give up and get loose

The jaunt is for purpose, or none?
I had no path, no plan, no charted goal,
I just loomed in the nothingness and then alas,
The passion, the hunger, the craving, the pain

The jaunt of pain, of craving, of caving,
Of defying, defending, destructing, devouring,
Of needing, neglecting and not having enough,
Of wanting, of asking and then reducing to naught.

Just in Case

Just in case I forget,
I will leave a note in my desk drawer,
Just in case I don't see it there,
I will leave a reminder on my phone,
Just in case the phone dies down,
I will keep a note in my purse too,
In case I err and throw that away,
I will put a note on my fridge door,
Just in case I fail to see it,
I will put one on my mirror too.

Probably the task is worth forgetting,
Why take the trouble, just forget it,
But try as I may I cannot now,
It is etched deep in my mind.
Just in case I do not forget,
I will go complete the task.
But just in case I do forget,
I will be glad to do that too.

Days go by just mulling over,
What I did... what I did not,
I am beginning to wonder: why I am?
Is it to complete unfinished tasks?
Most important tasks, I do not defer,
I breathe, I eat, I sleep enough too,
Yet each breath comes, with the thought,
Some unfinished task will raise its head,
And chase me on to, God knows what.

Skeletons hanging in my cupboard,
Those cans of worms,
The corpses lying in my fridge,
Dust under my carpet,
Unanswered calls,
A broken tap,
Old cells and phones,
Broken toys, old under size clothes,
The camera roll, not developed for 10 years,
Pile of papers that came by mail,
A wall waiting for a classic art,
Few broken curtain clips to replace,
The chimney filter that leaks oil,
Loose saucepan handles, some even missing,
Non stick pans to be replaced,
Missing, rice, sugar, salt or spices,
Vegetables bought but never cooked,
A pack of sushi rice, never used,
Some door hinges, paints on the wall,
Some broken tiles,
Even flower pots keep breaking off,
The gazebo curtain all in shreds,
The fan which sing crazy song, when regulated at 2 or 3,
And at 5 it just blows the house off,
The drawers that need to be cleaned often,
The missing keys, The loft that is full.

The list goes on, it is endless.
The gift of breath from mother nature,
We have plans to fill each one,
With this and that and more and more,
We make and break and break and make,
And then one day we bequeath it all,
And leave the world to others who breathe.
Just the same, breaking and mending.

We mend the break, that is what we are,
We break and mend and mend and break,
We don't hunt any more. We don't wage any wars,
We get what we want and we mostly want what we get,
That is how the river flows,
The river of life is captured in,
The "To Do List" that goes on and on.