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Dr. Usha Devarajan

As a dispute resolution professional – some would call me a counsellor – I am constantly appalled at the things we do to our children and what we put them through. All those clichés about parents forcing their own dreams on their unwilling children are true but more than that, the one thing that I have understood in the course of my work is that parenting is a life-skill that needs practice. It’s not genetically guaranteed – especially not in the Gulf where families are either split or living in a pressure-cooker environment with no family circle to add dimensions to the relationship.

Parent-child trap

With so many men and women forced to live a single life because of their work status and family issues, you would think that man-woman problems are the most frequently raised concerns that come to me – but even I have been surprised that a high 80% or so of the conflicts that I am asked to help with are related to parent-child problems. And that is especially true of people from Kerala where almost every family in the state has one or more relatives or bread-winners in the Gulf since the boom years of the ‘seventies. It has led to a wide split in the family structure with one or both parents here and the kids entrusted to unwilling relatives or sent to boarding school.

Back home, people have unrealistic ideas about the ‘streets of gold’ in the Gulf and don’t see the sweat and sacrifices made to send money home so that the families may live in comfort. Absentee parents and spouses go back once a year and both the holidaying returnee and the rest of the family tiptoe around each other to maintain the holiday peace. It’s a relationship fraught with unnatural pressure and leads to resentment all around.

And this resentment spills over into the rest of the life for everybody, Children who have grown up without their parents, resent the demands made upon them in adulthood. Parents, wallowing in their sense of supreme sacrifice, feel justified in expecting the children to toe the line. Like most long-distance relationships, this too is hard work and most of us lose the plot pretty early on!

Insensitive

Surprisingly, though most of my work is about restoring parent-child relationships, I can disclose that I rarely meets the child in question. Two reasons: Most often, it is the parents who need more guidance than the ‘problem’ child. Secondly, the sheer insensitivity of parents in the presence of their children compounds the problem,

Time and again, parents have brought their child to me and started off the conversation by accusing the child of being “not normal”. The harm this does to a child’s psyche is so severe  that I now refuse to meet the parents and the child together.

‘Not normal’ are probably the two scariest words in the parental lexicon. It can encompass everything from poor eating to not doing homework to wanting to be a tightrope walker instead of the prescribed engineer/ doctor. It refers darkly to not complying with what society demands in terms of conformity and it can blight a relationship and a person’s own self image.

In one case, a child who was battling weight issues, was put on a strict diet by the parents, who even locked the fridge and kitchen cupboard to prevent her from straying from her diet. It seems like a sensible step but when I happened to meet the family at a social function, I was shocked that the child was constantly refused the most tempting dishes while the rest of the family sat around her and ate those same items. To me, the worst thing was that this bright child was made to repeatedly ask for a particular food item only to be refused every time. I think being asked to literally beg for something in public is even more demeaning to one’s self-esteem than being over-weight.

Ideally, in my opinion, the parents should have sought the help of a qualified nutritionist, set feasible goals for the child’s weight loss and made it a family project with treats built into the diet for every milestone. Even if the other family members didn’t need to lose weight, they could at least eat the same balanced and tasty meals so that the dieter is not tempted and the adults could lead by example.

The first thing parents must do to build a loving life-long relationship with their children is understand that the children are individual people in their own right and not a means of setting right their own insecurities and living out their failed dreams. The second requirement is honesty. I’ve met parents who have just squeaked through high school, pretending to their kids that they are college graduates; couples who have had a love marriage but want to hide the fact from their children because they want to choose their children’s partners. Don’t they realize that they’re living at the edge of a simmering volcanic crater? A careless word from a friend or relative can reveal all and the child’s trust will be damaged.

Scientists today agree that a mother’s thoughts and feelings and the environment in which a baby grows in-uteri affects the mental, physical and spiritual development of the child lifelong. If that is so, surely we must pay attention to the preparedness of the couple for parenthood?.

Preparing for Marriage

One of the most uplifting moments for me was when a young man approached me for pre-marital counseling recently. He’s a blue-collar worker and is set to marry a nurse. He told me he had problems with anger management and had insecurities that made him suspect everybody of talking behind his back. “I want to change all this before I marry because my wife will be interacting with doctors and professionals who are more educated than I and I want to live up to her expectations,” he told me. He also said that he wanted to understand how to keep his wife emotionally and physically happy and that really gave me hope. If a man with basic education could plan ahead for his marital well-being, surely people with more exposure to education and to the world will see the benefit of pre-marital counseling too.

I can provide counseling to the youngsters about to get married, that the first step is to understand the dynamics of natural boy-girl relationships instead of jumping into marriage straight from the unnatural, hothouse perspective followed in most Asian countries.  In Asian cultures, young men and women are still discouraged from sharing friendships with the opposite sex. I believe that parents should set clear boundaries and encourage such friendships so that youngsters can develop their own yardstick of good and bad relationships. And pre-marital counseling is vital for young couples to understand the core values of respect and love that guide a marriage. Yes, you imbibe these values from your family and elders but in these quick changing times, we need an updated perspective which is often missing in traditional families.

I can conclude that your children are your mirror – they will reflect your values, your goodness and your love as faithfully as they will your shortcomings and your disinterest. So hone your parenting skills on the whetstone of love and goodness and set free your child’s spirit.