My wife told me to wake my younger daughter up for dance classes on Sunday. I tried my best a couple of times and gave up. I told my wife that she would have to try. A couple of minutes later I was getting ready for my walk and I was asking, has she gotten up? She walked past me with a look and I wondered how this happened?
Later that day, I was about to put on HotStar to complete one movie that my wife and I saw in parts. My daughter jumped onto the sofa with her book ” Wimpy Kid -Do it your self-work book” and asked me lots of questions. One such question was which was the last book I was reading? I said I just completed ” What the heck do I do with my life?” Immediately she giggled and told me my last book was “Gita for children”!
The day when we were all preparing our younger daughter to go to school after a break of 2 years, an article in the Times of India caught my attention: It went as below:
Help kids switch from Virtual to real: Experts to parents ( Get them back to routine and cut screen time, they advise). This article with the headline and subtext caught my attention on the day when my daughter was resuming school after a gap of two years.
We are now 3 days old with her in the school and it has been a very difficult 3 days for her as I understood from my wife. At least today she came up to me and asked me to get some rough books and she indeed explained some specifications for the books as well. That was a poignant moment for me as for two years I don’t think she had asked me for books. I was in a state of satiety. After all, it was less writing on paper and mostly it was multiple-choice questions and point and click did the job for her.
I read in that artcile that one of the most challenging thing for the kids is to how to reduce addiction with screens. We also faced the same thing. After all they were in the a virtual world of Kapow ( the sound of an explosion or crash)
That day, my daughter must have asked me around 30 questions from the book. The most challenging ones were the follow-up questions. For eg: why your favourite colour is Orange? I had to come up with something. Some of the other questions which had my quick answers were as below :
Age you were when you learned to ride a bicycle? 8 years
The longest amount of time you’ve spent away from home ( first time) ? I got delayed from college and I forgot to inform my mother and all my neighbours were in our house.
The longest amount of time you spent watching TV each day? Watching TV every day post Engineering and getting my first job.
Age you’d pick if you had to stay the same age forever? 49 Years
The number of times you’ve watched your favourite movie? I told her we watched it together ‘ Pursuit of Happyness’ 3 times.
Number of times you’ve flown in an aeroplane – Quite a lot these days with travel every week
I enjoyed the question and answer session and this was a marked departure from the last two months when she was addicted to games and screens. Experts have advised parents to ensure the social well-being of kids as they move from the virtual to the real world. It was nice to see the transition happening from laptops to books.
So now to the truth. We were having dinner the other day and she came up with question of Boss. She was curious to know what are the characteristics of a boss. We explained to her that my wife and I had bosses and we were also boss in our career. She appeared surprised at least when I said it. Then i asked who is the boss in this house. She said , ” Mom is the boss”. We all had a good laugh and then she added ” You make good omelette”. That is the Home truth.
Now I read in the Times of India an article on ” chocolate meditation” wherein they use all 5 senses to enjoy the experience of eating chocolate. I wanted to try this on my daughter next time when she gets a bar of chocolate. I know whom I need to turn to get it done.
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