27th October 2010
`Purpose – the fifth factor'
Children are not machines to work without any purpose. They have a strong need to know why they should do the various things are asked to do. They have to be convinced on the `why' aspect than the `what' aspect. They are clear on what they are asked to do, but more often than not, they are not sure how the same will influence their life.
If you read the autobiography of famous people, you will notice that at a fairly early in their life they were clear on what they wanted to become. This is so especially on sports personalities. They were willing to sweat it out in the hot sun and putting in the enormous hours of practice. Many of us may not know what a normal day of an Olympian will look like. We see them only on the television playing a world class match and signing contracts worth hundreds and thousands of money. Behind all these are their years of painful hard work.
What distinguishes a child from an adult is the clarity of focus. An adult is likely to know why he is doing what he is doing. But a child does not know. One important responsibility of a parent is to bring this focus in their children. For example, the children resist getting up early morning. Instead of forcing this behaviour on them, the parents should make them to understand the purpose with logical facts on how the early morning has ozone and how ozone will do good for their health etc. Similarly the children will not be able to understand the connection between handwriting practice and good handwriting.
In order that the children understand the purpose, the parental communication should be focused to life skill education. In fact most of the problems of the children can be traced to the issue of attitude. Unless and until the attitude is changed, the behaviour cannot be changed. If the parents cannot communicate with children, then they should forget about having responsible children.
N C Sridharan and Radha Sridharan
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