Our state of mind is determined by our circumstances. Feeling happy or sad is based on our circumstances. Even if our future looks bleak, we have to remain hopeful.  

As parents we are the world and hope for our children. If they see us in a state of despair, our children will have to lead a life in obscurity and reviving back their confidence will become a Herculean task.

Sometimes destiny may push us to the brink that we may be at the verge of throwing in the towel. This is when we have to restore our fortitude. Hope is an unconditional belief that helps us to move on with optimism.

Most often our frustrations leave a silence in our souls. It is the hope that uplifts us into the dream world of future.  Read on to know how…

Leaving behind the crippled peasant husband in campestral China, the doting mother brought her seven year old into Singapore, to give the niftiest education possible.

She toiled in a sweat shop to make ends meet. Using scrap materials she kept her nose to the grindstone and made rag dolls during her remaining waking hours and sold them door to door. While most rebuffed, some others were genuinely generous enough to buy the rag dolls. With the meagre amount she had to support herself, the little girl and her crippled husband.

It was their sixth year of scrimp existence in Singapore. The little girl had grown up and looked like a stunning China doll. The mother and daughter grew close over the years and the perpetual motivation from the mother kept the little girl going. Never did she quetch about the impoverished conditions of life. Although she excelled in school, she was aloof and her mother was her world.

With just a week to go for the board exams, the mother fell ill. She was down with dengue fever. Dreading the medical costs, the unenlightened mother stay put at home and drank some concoctions with the hope to meliorate. Lack of medical attention and help exacerbated her condition. The little girl reckoned that her mother will bounce back, but on a Friday night, her mother dropped dead, right on her lap….

The little girl was bewildered… She lay close to her mother’s cadaver and wept two whole days and nights. Monday morning she ran up to school to inform her class teacher about it. She could not contact her father as her mother always dialled up to her father from a public telephone.

The school staff put in effort to inform the dad. The dad was flabbergasted. The tormented peasant, flew down to Singapore and hugged his little china doll, whom he had not seen for years. Now, he was her only hope. Although he was crippled, he ensured that his china doll was taken care of…. She was the topper in school that year, in the board exams….

It is the hope that keeps us ticking. It is the hope that we are going to exist, that makes us draw up plans for tomorrow, knowing fully well that we are all vulnerable.

Here is an analogy: Hope is like the stimulant (caffeine) that is there in coffee or tea. Keep sipping it, little by little, to stimulate yourself and buy your loved ones a cup too (free of cost). Be wary not to take too much, as too much ‘caffeine’ is not good for health. Counter balance your presumptions and mitigate your sadness by hoping for the best to happen for you and your future generation.

Many of us still abide by the old maxim ‘Spare the rod and spoil the child’. Sparing the rod does not necessarily always spoil the child. Let me share with you how and why….

If we recall, most often we would have caned our children, when they have been stubborn or have refused to listen to us. Our strong desire is to have well disciplined children who listen to us all the time and abide by what we say. “Unfulfilled desire is the root cause of our anger”. When they falter we flare up.  While threatening to cane may be an effective way to deter their wrong behaviour, caning children is just an outlet to our pent up emotions.

Punishment is the not the only way to discipline our kids. We have to reason it out with them. We have to express our love for them. We have to show them that we care for them and that we are genuinely concerned about their future. Genuine love is the unconditional love that comes from the heart, which need not be extraordinary. Let us genuinely love our kids and be loved, without getting sick and tired of it.

Despite all this, if we still have to resort to punishment, we have to take the effort to distinguish between the ‘ Person’ and the ‘ Issue or the behaviour’. Let us make it very clear to our children that we are condemning their action and not them.

Studies show that, children who are often caned become more rebellious. They are the ones who have more emotional and behavioural problems. So, Caning would mean falling off the frying pan, into the fire.

Read on to know why?

It was about 11 pm when my phone rang. Just as I wondered who it could be, I heard someone sob at the other end. I wondered why she had called me then, that too sobbing. I knew that she was really heart broken.

She had often told me about the fights that go on between her parents. The fights were stormy with her mom slapping the dad and threatening to divorce. I thought that, it must have been one of those days, where the fight had gone beyond control and that she needed a shoulder to cry on… I was wrong… It was not a fight between her parents.

She always felt that she was not liked or loved by anyone, both at school and at home. Her mother evinced her rage evoked by the fights on the hapless child. The agony was so traumatising that she would do anything to escape from the treacherous world.

Between stifled sobs, she told me that she was leaving home. I was shocked and asked her why. Even at that point in time, it did not strike me that she was in trouble and that too, all alone. Her mom had locked her up after caning her for procrastinating to cleanup the dinner table. In her wild rage and pent up emotions, the little girl was mangled and doused with left over soup and dumped into the dog’s kennel. She successfully broke open the lock and thought of calling me before leaving the house.

I tried talking her out, for an hour, but she refused to budge. I knew why. The tormented heart was torn during the turbulent situations and it had overruled the mind. I admonished her about the wretched world, out in the dark. When she was impervious to my pleas, I started worrying. I was afraid that my effort to forbid the child would go into smoke if I did not handle the situation carefully.

I could feel the pain that the tender heart was going through. The sobs made my heart melt. I was helpless and wanted God to show me the way to dissuade the child from getting out of the house. Although I was successful in making the 12 year old stay at home that night ……….. now, the sixteen year old is a school dropout, a chain smoker and head of gangsters. As expected, her mom and dad are divorced and she is left, out in the streets, with no one to care for or condemn her behaviour.

I was so traumatised by this whole event and thought that I should pour out my heart to you all, so that you will not be responsible for making a tender heart sob or spoil the future of someone, who could have otherwise blossomed…

So, let us resist caning or use it sparingly to get the best results. Here is an analogy: Our children are like the crop and their wrong behaviour is like the pest. Caring is like providing the fertiliser and manure required for the healthy growth of the crop. Caning is like a pesticide. When we use too much of the pesticide, the pests become resistant to it. Then we may have to provide even a stronger dose (severe punishment by law) of it to keep them under control.