‘A Child Follows What Parents Do, Not What They Preach’

Akhilesh Srivastav, a father of an adolescent girl, emphasises on participative upbringing of children and not by controlling their lives. His views:

I strongly support the view expressed by tech icon Narayana Murthy when he said ‘If I am watching TV, I cannot ask my children to study’. How can you justify going to movies or watching television at home without hampering the attention of your children? I mean, it is okay if the child is still an infant when a movie or a TV programme hardly matters for him or her. But if the child is an adolescent, you need to restructure your daily routine to lead by example.

I am a proud father of an adolescent girl and we live in a joint family. I frequently take my daughter and other children of my extended family to a movie so that we inculcate a sense of belonging and spend time together. At home, I ensure that my pastimes or interests do not collide with my daughter’s study time. When there is TV time, all of us will watch television and when it is study time, we shall all be immersed in reading activity.

Mr Narayana Murthy hits the nail when he said, “it is for the parents to create an environment of discipline at home for our children to study”. Children do not follow what you preach; they follow the footsteps of their parents’ action; a disciplined life from the beginning will help them to be more responsible, independent and thoughtful. If we start making healthy changes in our children’s lives from the very beginning, they will adopt them early and carry it for their lifetime. The same thumb-rule applies in all walks of their lives.

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Besides, parenting also needs some flexibility. I do not approve of a strict copybook time table for children as we are not living in a military academy. After all, in the age of gadgets and technology, you cannot restrict the access of any kind of information from the children of this generation. In our growing up years, for example, we needed a dictionary or parental guidance to understand a new word or concept. Today, everything is accessible on your smartphone. We cannot take away this advantage from their lives. But we can teach them how to use these gadgets judiciously so that it does not become an addiction.

Technology such as a smartphone must be allowed to be used by children but needs to be monitored by parents – as it can be a double-edged sword with both negative and positive aspects. Since we are supposed to be their mentors (at least before they cross their teenage) it is our responsibility to regulate their exposure to the outer world – the internet and social media to be precise.

Quality time should be spent with growing up children. No doubt sometimes it is not feasible due to the work culture these days, but we as parents should manage first ourselves learn to maintain work-life balance and then expect study-life balance from our children. As Mr Murthy beautifully put: a parent must lead by example.

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As told to Rajat Rai