I have realized over the years that my best teachers have been like good psychologists. They have always encouraged me to think and come up with answers myself. I have had the good luck of being asked the right questions and just-about-enough intelligence to realize that the answers were not going to be simple or straightforward. It seems that our son has decided to join that group of people who have taken it upon themselves to teach me a thing or two. His attitude towards my tuition is a bit different though. His instructions are not passed to me in a conventional way, i.e. no word that requires consonants are used.
Over the years, people who I have looked up to, have all shared one trait in common. They have been able to communicate in a way, both through the said and the unsaid word, that has resonated with me. Understanding of all that I did pick up came with time. In management parlance, it is called the "ah ha moment". It is a moment in time when realization strikes and things start making sense.
In the past few months our son has, through a needs-based-system (something that all infants and parents go through, I am sure), taught us the importance of starting a day early. His definition of early keeps changing on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis but it mostly remains pretty consistent. It is only by starting the day early, with or without an adequate amount of sleep, that we are able to get everything taken care of before leaving for work. This may or may not be a lesson for many, or most, but yours truly has always been a habitual "late to bed and later to rise" kind of a person.That habit has served me well in the past. The idea of getting up with enough time to get to work made perfect sense. Times are a-changing now.
Parenting, I think, is less about following a path laid out in front of you (however there are some elements of that as well) and more about adapting to an ever changing and very dynamic system. I would argue that a good parent is one that adapts most efficiently to their child's needs but also has the strength to follow and teach convention whenever necessary. This power to be accepting and responsive to a changing time or culture or need or environment is what makes a parent, and in turn a leader, successful.
Adapting translates more to how we respond to situations and issues at hand rather than a change in our core value system. That system should remain mostly intact.
What am I picking up from our son then?
What we are learning is that raising him is definitely giving us a chance to adapt to a different culture than the one we grew up in. It would also require us to deal with a whole host of situations that we might not even deem possible right now. The real test is going to be to see how we translate this learning into something that will help us grow as parents and as professionals.
Like the commentator of the Cricket match said just now, "the quality of the batsman is measured by how well they bat in situations where the bounce of the ball is uneven". Ah ha!
Over the years, people who I have looked up to, have all shared one trait in common. They have been able to communicate in a way, both through the said and the unsaid word, that has resonated with me. Understanding of all that I did pick up came with time. In management parlance, it is called the "ah ha moment". It is a moment in time when realization strikes and things start making sense.
In the past few months our son has, through a needs-based-system (something that all infants and parents go through, I am sure), taught us the importance of starting a day early. His definition of early keeps changing on a weekly, and sometimes daily, basis but it mostly remains pretty consistent. It is only by starting the day early, with or without an adequate amount of sleep, that we are able to get everything taken care of before leaving for work. This may or may not be a lesson for many, or most, but yours truly has always been a habitual "late to bed and later to rise" kind of a person.That habit has served me well in the past. The idea of getting up with enough time to get to work made perfect sense. Times are a-changing now.
Parenting, I think, is less about following a path laid out in front of you (however there are some elements of that as well) and more about adapting to an ever changing and very dynamic system. I would argue that a good parent is one that adapts most efficiently to their child's needs but also has the strength to follow and teach convention whenever necessary. This power to be accepting and responsive to a changing time or culture or need or environment is what makes a parent, and in turn a leader, successful.
Adapting translates more to how we respond to situations and issues at hand rather than a change in our core value system. That system should remain mostly intact.
What am I picking up from our son then?
What we are learning is that raising him is definitely giving us a chance to adapt to a different culture than the one we grew up in. It would also require us to deal with a whole host of situations that we might not even deem possible right now. The real test is going to be to see how we translate this learning into something that will help us grow as parents and as professionals.
Like the commentator of the Cricket match said just now, "the quality of the batsman is measured by how well they bat in situations where the bounce of the ball is uneven". Ah ha!
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