Killing Childhood

It's almost evening and a boy is about to return from school. A look into his house would tell a lot of things.

The lady is busy making rotis for her son, when the doorbell rings and mama rushes to open it. Enters our hero, a ten-year old, with his progress report. Mama snatches the card in anxiety and throws a look of utmost perplexion at the kid, who, in the meantime, has managed to switch on the television set to watch his favorite programme. Ensues the mother's dialogue...

"Rohit! How dare you switch on the tv when you have managed only eighty five percent in mathematics and science? Your dad works so hard to send you to school and tuitions and all you give in return is this? Shame on you. I will accompany you to your tuition class today and tell the teacher to increase the number of classes to four a week. And no more music classs for you. Tara aunty engages tuitions for science and you will be attending them from next week. After tuitions in the evening, you will come back home and study. Do you get me? Look at Ram. He has secured 95 in both subjects without attending tuitions. I just don't know how to get you on to the right path."

The boy is shocked. Meekly, he replies - "Ma, 85 is not bad either. I am only in class five, to which his mom says, "If you score only 85 in the fifth, you will end up failing in your tenth."

This dialogue is not uncommon in many of our homes. We may have been victims of all this ourselves. The real reason to Rohit's "failure" is obvious. Encroaching into the lives of children and forcing them to do things that they do not intend to do, according to me, is criminal. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy, is a well known saying. Sending kids away to tuitions is no healthy way of orienting the kid towards academics. Not just tuitions, but forcing the child to attend classes in music, dance, drawing etc. all held when the kid is interested in playing outdoors, makes the child lose interest in everything.

Leave them to bask in their lovely innocence, of course, giving small dosages of academics, and they will grow up into potential talent sources. Childhood is the best part of human life and parents should ensure that it is cherished by the child when he/she grows into an adult. Like nature, childhood remains beautiful as long as there is no interference.

The bottomline, is this - "Innocence must flourish and should not be poisoned by adult maturity".