Sometime back, at a social gathering, I was witnessing a rather interesting sight. Two teeny tots, maybe around six summers, were skittishly prancing around near me. The one, in mauve-hued lacy dress, was holding a couple of chocolates in her clenched fists. The other girl, in powder-blue netted frock, was persistently pleading this girl to part with at least one chocolate, which this girl was pretty loathe to.
Since the girl in blue dress, couldn’t forcefully prise out the chocolates, she started indulging in blandishments saying that purple was her fave colour and that the girl with chocolates was looking pretty like a princess in that purple frock. The other girl, falling for this fawning, with flourish, handed few chocolates to her. At that moment, I overheard the mother of the girl in blue dress telling someone how the girl had badgered her to buy that blue dress, as it was her fave colour. I was greatly stumped to see how a child at that age could indulge in sophistry and unctuous ways, just to wangle out few chocolates. Then I noticed this girl’s mother, too, speaking with others with the same artifice and posturing. Apparently, our children are our own mirror reflection. Incidentally, every day in the early morning, I see parents standing along with their little children, waiting for their school bus. The pride in parents’ eyes is pretty palpable, particularly of those, whose wards study in top-notch schools. We are under the illusion that just by sending children to such schools, we are moulding their complete personality. We even try making them learn everything, right from swimming to painting, music to Casio playing, from tennis to dancing, so that they don’t straggle behind in today’s rat race.
Ironically, more often than not, we fail to teach those things that are more vital in sculpting their actual personality - that which would make them evolve into most endearing humans. Like, we fail to teach children good manners/ behaviour and other social etiquette. We fail to teach them honesty, sincerity and integrity in the works they do. We fail to teach them sterling qualities of being humble, modest, polite, besides being empathic, compassionate and respectful to others around. We fail to teach them moral values, principles and ideologies. Often, we see people, by astute means, walking away with macro success with micro efforts at workplaces. We see them taking credit for others’ work, but shuffling blame on others for mistakes they commit. We see them behaving as if being self-centred, snooty, short-fused, are all stylish qualities. What we don’t realise is that all of these practical lessons would be getting indoctrinated in the children, and they learn from ‘what they see practically’, and not from ‘what they hear theoretically’. Naturally, in future, they would hold a mirror up to parents, to have a look at their own reflection - their vices, flaws and shortcomings.
