Competitive, to be or not to be!

*Yet another long post, looking for answers*

Frankly I dont know how to address this. This is something that has been gnawing at me for quite a while. A bit too much lately.

Namnam has been a girl who has never cared much about winning or staying ahead of her peers and I have been a mother, I admit, who has never really tried to change this attitude of hers. It has largely taken form because she has always been told to simply care more about giving her best and being satisfied with her own performance than worrying about performing better or worse than other children. Thus she has been in a very secure zone without cowing under any kind of performance pressure.

Yes there have been times when she has not been able to give her best, but she has never let that bother her much. In fact there have been quite a few times when her friends have surged past her, and she has genuinely felt happy for them. At such occassions, she has focused more on bettering herself the next time than whining about not scoring over her friends. And it makes me immensely happy when I see her so secure about herself. Because I have seen many children taking rejections in a very negative manner. In fact at times when Namnam has performed better than her peers, I have seen them bawling their lungs out, making a big hue and cry out of it making my child wonder if she had done anything wrong by faring well!

Now as her mother I too have not given ‘being one step ahead of others’ much importance. As long she gives her best in whatever she does and comes home completely happy and satisfied I haven’t felt the need to fret about who performed better or worse than her. Winner or not, I’m proud of her, have always been, will always be.

Two days ago, I met up with some friends and while talking, our discussion moved towards the common topic of letting our kids participate in events and competitions. And one of my friends just casually mentioned that she had stopped enrolling her daughter for competitions for the simple reason that she didn’t win any prizes in any of the events!

Which made me wonder if it was really so important to win! I mean, isn’t taking part in a competition or any event, in itself a reason enough to let your child participate?

I understand the whole grind of assembling things required to prepare your child for the event, not to forget the time and energy invested in it is not an easy task and it can be disappointing when the efforts do not yield desired results. But to look at the flip side, the participation could give your child more exposure, gain him/her more confidence in him/herself, teach him/her to face rejection and emerge stronger.

This is the reason why I avoid getting worked up over how well Namnam performs, be it in school or elsewhere. And when I see Namnam confident and secure about her own capabilities, I find it all the more easier to handle.

But….

(Sigh, if only there weren’t any ‘ifs and buts’, life would be so much more sorted!)

But, lately I have been sensing that this attitude of hers might be making her lax, making her lose the will to perform or even win for that matter.

Recently while driving back home after Namnam’s swimming class, R and I pointed out how she had to improve further on her kicks and get better at her speed, to which she immediately replied, “Oh but P is anyway always faster than me!”. This reaction of hers gave us a jolt, making us realize that she was resigning herself to a state of being lesser than her batch mate. Which made us wonder if she was showing signs of giving up on herself.

Now I have no qualms in accepting that P may be better than my child. I know that every child is different, his/her strengths are different, capabilities are different. So if P fares better than Namnam, then it is also true that Namnam is better than A, K or B. What worries me however is when I see her devaluing herself and this when she knows that she is capable of far more than her peer.

Today, like most of the days I am confused as a parent. My mind is swaying in dilemma. Does the answer to my concerns really lie in teaching my child to be more competitive? Be more aggressive? How do I get her to value herself? Do I now start telling her that winning IS important?

Yes. I think I need to do just that.

No I don’t want to instill in my child the obsession to win at any cost! No! But I also don’t want her to think any less of herself than her peers, which may eventually give way to low self esteem. So I need to tell her to change the way she thinks..

I need to tell her to stop believing that A, P, or K can fare better than her and start believing that she can.

I need to tell her not to give up on herself.

I need to tell her to learn to face dejection and then focus on succeeding the next time.

I need to tell her that every time she thinks low of herself, her actions and performances will be that much slower.
But each time she believes in her abilities, she will be driven to give her best that much more!

I need to tell her to change the way she thinks.

Look at me! On one side I am chiding a friend’s for her overtly competitive streak and on the other I am talking about instilling the very streak in my child.

Is the mind any more sound now?

No..

My mind is still full of conflicting thoughts, still incoherent…

Did anyone say parenting was easy?

The Nail Biting Finish

Quite literally if I can say.

I have been an acute nail-biter for as long as I can remember. I was, perhaps, born with this vice. I cant remember when it was that I started chewing my nails first. My mother, whenever asked, would say the same. It is a habit that I have not been particularly proud of, yet never been able to shirk off completely.

And it is something I have always been associated with. My family has resorted to all possible means in hope of getting me rid of this habit. I have been scolded umpteen times( I still do), got flicked by my parents on numerous occasions of chewing my nails like a mouse, ridiculed by my school mates to the point that every day as I enter my class there would be a small piece of nail placed on my desk, just so I could see it and feel disgusted enough to quit the habit. But all in vain.

I remember quite vividly how as a mere 7 or 8 year old or maybe a year here and there, I had once very earnestly attempted to chew my toe nails after chewing off all of my hand nails!

Now, of course the toe nails don’t attract me much, but my hand nails…..

I have still not been able to get rid of the vice. It’s not that I have not tried. The last I tried hard was some 13 years back, around my wedding. I was successful in keeping my nails away from my mouth for a month or so, only to switch back to my old chewy self!

Today again, I am driven to get rid of this nasty habit of mine, all thanks to this wonderful group I am a part of on Facebook.

Indiblogeshwaris, a page created by fellow blogger Vinita who blogs by the name of BlogwatiG, is a thriving group comprising of only women bloggers. As the tagline says, it is a group for

women of tough stance

, where everything and anything under the sun is discussed, without any prejudices, or hang-ups or fleeting judgments. It is a group where women are let be. The only rule, per se, here is not to plug in our own blog posts.

And today, the group is turning one.

As a part of celebration a fun challenge, aptly themed, The Elusive One, was thrown at us exactly one month back where we were to pick that one thing we had always wanted to do or get rid of, and actually make it happen. And of course share about it all on the anniversary day.

I thought of this as a good opportunity to get rid of my nail biting habit, mainly because I noticed, to my horror that Namnam had begun to chew her nails too lately. So to make her stop it was important that I stopped first.

So here I am, all sober for the last one month…and trying to maintain it further

I’ll admit that it has not been easy to keep away from it completely, in fact I did occasionally end up chewing only to withdraw immediately when I remembered the challenge I had taken up.

Nonetheless it feels nice to realize that I could stay true to the resolution I had taken for myself.

I am not sure how far I can fight the urge to bite again, but I know for sure that I feel really good about curbing it for my daughter’s sake, for my own sake. And I hope I am able to maintain it from now on.

To give you an idea how my nails looked at the start of the month..

And how it looks now..

I can hear you laugh!!

Indiblogeshwaris, thank you so much for driving me towards taking this step! If not for this challenge I wouldn’t have even thought of testing my resistance level!

Now c’mon lets have another challenge to help me keep this zest alive and keep me from biting my nails ever!

On a serious note, heres wishing each and every member of this group a very Happy First! Vinita, to thank you especially for creating such a lovely haven for us women!

Here’s to you, here’s to us, here’s to Indiblogeshwaris!

How far to go before I let my child swear!

Roshni’s post prompts me to ponder..

Now before I start jotting down my thoughts further I need to mention that I have very low tolerance on anyone using swear words. No I have no issues about people mouthing them behind my back. Even if I do I cant do much about them because quite obviously I cannot control the words that I cant hear,right? But if someone uses them in front of me I either put my displeasure vehemently across or simply walk away from there.

Why, I even had R take back the ‘F’ word that he had uttered once barely few days into our marriage. A few eunuchs had come over to our house to ask for some gifts as a custom and R felt so agitated at their authoritative tones that he just let that word slip out in exasperation! And it was the first time I had heard someone use that word in front of me. He realized his slip of tongue and understood that I was not one to tolerate such words. I made it clear he was free to use his vocabulary in whichever manner he wanted in my absence, but he had to be extremely careful about not using swear words in my presence.

Since then, till today he has never used the F word or such strong swear words in my presence.

And ever since Namnam came into our lives we both have been extra careful and conscious that we dont utter any wrong words in front of her.

This is where Roshni’s post makes me think. Now letting her older child use swear words with friends and in front of his parents, albeit with strict warning of not using them elsewhere seems to have worked well fr her family. So much so that when the circumstance arose, her older son has even been wise enough to make his younger brother understand about the dangers of using swear words.

What I want to know is how well this strategy will work for my child. The strategy of telling her that it is ok to use swear words with friends but not with others I mean. I wonder if it will work even considering my strong reservation about using such words at home or outside. The strongest swear words that Namnam has come to hear are ‘stupid’, ‘idiot’ and ‘what the hell’.

In fact I have been guilty of calling her ‘stupid’ once. She made a big howling issue of it making me take that word back and apologize to her. Frankly I felt awfully miserable myself at having lost my cool that day.

Now I know for a fact that she is growing up, growing up real fast and with each passing day and year, she is going to be introduced to more strong words, sometimes by her friends, sometimes by the shows that she watches, or at times by the books she reads. And not all times is it necessary that I will be there to police her, stop her from picking them up. In which case I wonder what is the way to go.

I agree words like,’ what the hell’ or what the heck are not so strong as to be made such a big deal out of. But what if your child picks up a more dangerous ‘F’ word or Ass.H or such words? Would you still say its ok to use them? I get really perturbed when I hear small children mouthing such dynamites so liberally these days. Really I do. Sometimes I wonder if the kids even understand the meaning of those words before mouthing them. Why words, I get taken aback by some of their actions even. I have seen kids as small as 7 or 8 year old showing finger as a mark of dissent! I mean do they even know what that means?

And this is where I feel concerned as a parent. How do I address it if my child, someday picks it up and starts using them? Do I admonish her sternly and forbid her from using those words, in which case she might get more rebellious and drawn towards using them even more? Or, do I tell her the literal meaning of those words and then let her decide whether she wants to swear or no?

How far do I go really?

A day I have to keep a record of..

Sometimes all you need is a little jolt to make you realize how blessed you are to be sitting here in the safe confines of your home with your daughter right beside you watching her favorite show as you type these words on your mobile, when these very moments could have turned out something entirely, drastically tragically different.

My hands and feet are still shaking as I recollect the moments Namnam and I spent in one of the home furnishing stores a while ago.

We were excitedly strolling along the lanes with our trolley, picking up stuff needed to do up the room for my father-in-law who is expected next week. We reached the cash counter all set to check out when all of a sudden the fire-alarm went off! For a good few seconds nobody reacted, since most of us thought it to be normal fire drill. When it still didn’t stop the anxiety started creeping in. Namnam covered her ears wondering loud, quite loud at the deafening jarring sound. The cashiers stopped tapping on their keyboards. And then I saw a lot of people running helter skelter towards the elevator. Right then one of the customer care officials announced that it was a false alarm. I heaved a sigh. Barely for a fraction of a second but. For right after, he announced us all to evacuate the building. So the alarm wasn’t false,but very much real!

I had a stream of thoughts running in my mind as I held Namnam’s hand to get out of the building. I had to get to the basement of the building to take the car out. But would we reach there in time? What if we got trampled in a stampede? Would I be able to get my Namnam home safe? The thoughts kept gnawing at me as I held Namnam’s hand, walked down the stairs and out of the building. We were still away from the basement and way away from the spot I had parked the car in. Right then on our way out I met a friend and her husband who were trying to figure out a way to get to the basement too. I felt a strange sense of relief to have spotted a known face in the midst of an utterly chaotic and panic-ridden situation.

We, then, found a way to the parking lot from the side of the building. Fortunately my friend and her husband spotted their car close but Namnam and I had to walk a bit to get to ours.

The parking lot had turned into one hell of a deafening room filled with panicking car-horns. I wasn’t sure whether I would succeed in taking the car out. Namnam wondered the same. And when she said, “Amma, if you kept saying it was a fire alarm, why is it that you’re driving so slow? Why cant we get out fast?”, I realized that my child was scared too! Although I tried to reason to her about the number of cars ahead of us trying to get out, I wonder if she even heard me. She had her eyes firmly focused looking out for the exit, like me. I messaged R who was in Delhi, about the situation we were in. Not that he would have been able to help, but then it gave me some kind of strength to be able to just reach out to him.

And right after I messaged my three closest friends on our common chat thread just so they could reach me if needed.

In another 10 min or so we were out of the parking on to the road well on our way home! Were we glad to be safe!

Well not fully safe yet, as I was to find out soon as I drove a few meters further, still reeling under the shock of what we had just gotten out of. I banged into a car right in front of me while waiting at the traffic signal! Luckily, it was a minor bump so no dents on either of the cars and even more fortunatelt the driver was a very patient and polite person, a fellow parent but certainly not a hassled one like me! I could get away with a sorry and drive home.

As we reached home it all began to sink in.

Now at the end of it all it may not seem such a big deal. But its when you think back at those moments that you realize how much worse it could have got.

Fate has strange ways to kick you out of your complacency! I have been so laid back and engrossed in this life that I have forgotten when was it last that I stepped back to look at the beautiful way my life was shaped by so many wonderful people around me and be thankful about it…

I have my Namnam whose unconditional and growing love for me makes every single day of my life worth the while. I have R whose rock solid support just keeps me going always. I have my parents( achan, amma, appaji), who seem to just magically know when I need them to give me strength and will to pull through difficult tides. And I have my friends whose just being there is the best assurance that I can get. The confidence, the trust I can place in them at any point in time is more than I could ever ask for.

I can’t thank God enough for blessing me with so many wonderful people in life. Life cannot get better than this. Touchwood!