Way of the Life

A friend commented on Facebook a while ago -

"8 year old kids today have Facebook, Twitter, phones, iPod. When I was there age, I had a coloring book, crayons, chalk, and imagination." A lot of responses lamented the fact that today's kids have the latest tech gadgets and have no three dimensional friends.

My take on this is entirely different.

As a parent, I think 8 years is too young to be on Facebook or Twitter; but many 8 year olds have a Wii or X-box and play many online games. By the time they are in their early teens, they are sure to have a Facebook account. I can't even imagine how these kids will be when they are adults in their 30s and 40s. Would they have hit a "thousands of friend" mark or invented new things by then?

But going back to the statement, it doesn't seem fair when you take step back and look at the bigger picture ... did our parents have TV when they were kids or did their parents have radio when our parents were kids... no! Every generation has invented something new and shiny that changed our way of life up until then ... children fought with parents to get those coveted items, and parents set out to set time limits and curfews around them.

One big change though is that with the Internet things like Facebook, iPhones, Twitter all happened in a relatively short period of time, which took many by surprise - completely foreign a while ago when inventions seem to take a much longer time period to occur. Information is fast paced were before one had to wait for the 9 o'clock news to know what even happened within one's own country or state.

Going back to the statement, maybe we are moving into a world of no more crayons and brushes for art, but on the other hand the kids today are connected to their school friends forever, instead of searching Facebook to find them and re-connect after years. They can be connected to their teachers and families from all parts of the world, where their past is essayed into pictures and videos that can live on forever. We cannot be sure what all this means but hopefully when we are grandparents, we can continue to look fondly at the memories and the next generation will still have a true view into the past. In my mind, everything has its good and bad. As parents we need to set limits just as my parents set what they thought was best for me. To lament about the new shiny toy is just setting ourselves to a losing battle.

Your thoughts?


*Image courtesy Google

Saying the wrong things

At Kochunni’s pre-school the teachers started a reading challenge some months ago. Every time the kids read a book they got a little magnet to take home and put on the poster. The idea is to encourage kids and give them the magnet as motivation to get through the 15 or so books. As you can imagine these are just simple books about a few pages long that help kids start to blend, rhyme and read.

A while back, Kochunni finished all the 15 books and gladly posted all the magnets on the fridge (he insisted that he wanted to get all of them before he put up anything) and that’s when we noticed that he had received two same magnets and was missing one. I told him that we take one of the similar ones to school tomorrow and exchange it for the one he was missing.

The next day when I went to pick him up I took the additional magnet and took it to the teacher. Now I might add, the teachers are usually still with other kids and the policy of the school is that if you want to chat with teachers you set up an appointment. So usually we just smile and say our goodbyes unless something has occurred like a child fell and bruised himself/herself or did not take nap or something.

So I went up to the teacher and mentioned the issue with the magnets and she started to check her cupboard to see if she had the missing magnet to give it to me. Kochunni was eagerly waiting alongside to get the same. Unfortunately she did not seem to have the one that we were missing so she asked that we check back later. Kochunni said ok and started to walk towards the door; and I was about to do the same, when the teacher said –I have to say something, today he said to a girl “I will ask my mom to kill your mom” and girl started to cry. We talked to him about it, but wondering were he got these ideas. Does he watch much television?

To say I was shocked would be like saying it rained today. I was blown over!

I told her, “no not really we only let him watch some TV over weekends which is still the kids stuff on PBS. She continued, “Its ok, he is just becoming mischievous these days, if you could also talk to him about it.” I said I sure will and looked up at Kochunni who was standing a few feet away near the door.

As I stepped out of the class, I asked him, what exactly did you do today to hear his side of the story. He immediately pouted and said he said what his teacher said he did. I asked him why that was the case and isn’t it a bad thing to say? We continued the discussion on the car ride back home. All the while he would cry at times or pout or at times try to defend himself by saying how she (the girl) would not play with him. I would try to counter each his arguments from pointing out his mistakes and telling him how “not playing” at a certain time did not warrant such a remark from him.

In my head, I had thousands of questions and not many answers.

As I was reaching home I decided that he needed to at least acknowledge his mistake clearly so I told him that he will need to write an “I am sorry” note and take it back to his teacher the next day. When he was afraid he couldn’t do it all by himself, I told him I would help him with the spelling and that it important for forgiveness to happen. I told him that I still loved him but that I am a little sad by what he did and expect him to do better next time.

As we turned to our lane, he cried once again that now even his Ammamma will be angry with him so I promised that I will not bring this up with his grandma, as long as he promises to never do or say something like this ever again. He nodded his head solemnly at me. Upon reaching home he rushed to have his snack and when I asked him about the note he was ready to write without a whine. He asked me again on how to give the letter and if that he could paint on the other side of the letter. I told him that I would bring it to school and it’s ok if there is no picture as this is note and not a birthday card. The next day I shared the note with his teacher. She mentioned that it was totally not necessary and smiled at me. She confirmed that there were no episodes that day.

The incident is over and a few weeks have passed. But I still question myself not only on my actions but also if this would be the last of its nature. Kochunni definitely has a temper but he is a good kid too. He possibly could have meant to say something completely different and went on to say the wrong thing or could be testing the boundaries, but I guess only time will tell if these digressions will occur again. All I can hope for is to continuing to teaching him good from bad and have the sense of mind to say/do the right thing at the appropriate time. Its at times like these that I realize the being a parent is a very hard responsibility, there are no magic answers and only time will tell if I handled the situation appropriately or not.