Leave the kids alone: Jessina

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“Parenting teenagers is quite a balancing act, like walking on ice. Because parents love their children and want only the best for them, they worry excessively about them. The major concern of parents is whether they are hitting the age- appropriate targets for behaviour.

Shouldn’t the child be toilet trained by the age of 3? Shouldn’t the 10 year old sit and do his home work alone?” observed noted parenting coach and child psychologist, Jessina Merchant at a parenting seminar, ‘Learning the apt way, the Montessori way’ at ‘The Child’ Montessori School, Vazhakkala, Kakkanad.

Regretting that every significant other adult around a teen was attempting to mould him / her into some acceptable shape, she said some parents were also guilty of living their dreams through their children, expecting them to excel in academics, be well behaved, responsible for themselves and sometimes for their younger siblings and bring in accolades from extracurricular activities, all of which amounted to tremendous pressure.

“Frequently, teens arrive at decisions which conflict with their own skills or fields of interest and the seeds of restlessness, anxiety, fear of failure and unbearable stress are then planted,” Ms Merchant continued, suggesting that children need to feel at home and comfortable in their schools too.

“Each child is different and learns at his or her own pace. Learning peaks between 3 and 10 years provided they are equipped and inclined towards acquiring knowledge by 2 or 3 years.

If we facilitate them to be creative and learn on their own, learning will continue,” she contended, underlining that children who were left to develop according to the needs of their nature were happier and responded better to adult’s educative efforts.

Explaining that the philosophy was at the root of the Montessori system, she said regrettably, even today, the machinery of most schools was lubricated by fear that without adult controls,children would get into trouble and that without external pressure, they would not learn.

“How can we teach children to live in a democracy, when they spend 15 years living under a benevolent dictatorship?” she concluded.