(Snippet of a routine conversation)
Teen Daughter: “Mom, why don’t you understand that our life is tough and complicated….”
Mom: “Hmmm..”
Teen Daughter: “Our world is full of distractions which are more fun to us than academics. It is very difficult for us to choose academics and focus on studies at home and school. We really are trying to match up to teachers and parents expectations….”
Mom: “Hmm…yeah, we didn’t have so many distractions. May be that’s why, it was easy for us to focus more on studies at your age. Our teenage years were much simpler.”
Teen Daughter: “You can NOW compare because you have experienced both times, yours & ours. But we haven’t. This is our world, however it is. We have no other experiences to compare it with.
Mom: “True…Even we had limited access to our friends in the absence of phone...We used to meet mostly in school and rarely outside.
Teen Daughter: “Tell me mom, at that age, if you had an option to be in touch with your friends on phones, wouldn’t you be tempted?”
Mom: “Hmm...May be, yes..”
Teen Daughter: “We understand when you tell us to focus and study , but we have our own problems which may seem small for you but its big for us and they matter to us...Hope you'll try to understand”
This conversation got me thinking, how much as parents we resist and disregard the young generations' world in our minds. And this resistance probably leads us to criticize, control and command them with a tinge of disapproval & despise of their way of life ; which leads to frequent confrontations and disagreements in parent-child relationship.
If we can accept the new world with its pros and cons, it will be easier for us to change our ways of thinking & parenting. We will then be able to challenge and change our old and irrelevant parenting beliefs. We will then be more empathetic towards them. We will then be able to pause & enquire in parent-child conflicts, understand our children's perspectives and support their needs.
-Writer Ms. Chaitali Shroff, & Editor - Capt. Lekshmy Natarajan
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