“All the world’s a stage, And all the men and women merely players”; so wrote Shakespeare. And he further added about the school boy thus: “And then the whining school-boy, with his satchel And shining morning face, creeping like snail Unwillingly to school.” Let me start right with school boys and girls; that stage where the drama of life enacts itself through the humourous fun, fight, and flight that happens when getting children ready for school.
Even when there is great fun at school and life is cool with friends, children don’t like to get up in the morning. They love to tuck themselves in the bed and say, “2 minutes,” “1 more minute,” “Please Mummy,” and so on. If that doesn’t work then there are fireworks. The only exception is when there is a picnic and they are ready even before parents are up!
As you look at what happens every morning, you simply say life is beautiful. Why? I don’t know. But memories of this fun and fight every morning are precious. No doubt the fights look terrible at times and can turn into screaming and physical fighting; there is a great relief when you catch the bus after a last minute olympic sprint defying and records-breaking run to the bus stop.
I wonder if there is any home that is free of this fun, fight, and flight I was talking about. It is only when parents talk freely with other parents that they discover this struggle is a common experience and it happens in every home in some way or the other.
Maybe that is when they realise something about the opening lines of Leo Tolstoy’s 1877 novel Anna Karenina, which begins: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way,” whatever that means!
It is also said that a family that prays together stays together. But I would also like to add that families that experience the fun, fight, and flight of sending children to school also bond in ways that defy logic. It is the heart that wins at the end. And sometimes chocolates too which are offered or demanded as means of compromise. Life is beautiful in the fun, fight, and fight mode; without doubt.
I, as the School Leader, stand here representing all the students of our school. It is the first time any one of us have been given a chance to speak out loud and clear what is in our hearts. We cherish this great opportunity.
Today, let me spell out for you what our hearts want to speak out.
First of all our hearts want to say thank you dear parents and beloved teachers for all what you have been to us, for all the wisdom you have shared with us and for all the encouragement you have given us.
Secondly, all of our hearts are anxious. In this increasingly technology driven world when many are compelled to spend much time online by choice or chance; it is becoming difficult to find true friendships. And when around the table talk during family dinner in many homes have been stolen by busyness and addicition to mobile screens, we children, each one of us feel like stranded on islands of our own making.
Thirdly, let me say we are ambitious. There are lot of more career opportunities ahead. There are a wide variety of courses to choose from to reach there. What our school has taught us is to pursue our goals and dreams. We are so happy that our parents and teachers have instilled in us the courage to persevere, to put in honest hard work, and have untiring enthusisam and hope in the midst of failures and setbacks in life.
Above all, we are learning to be compassionate and kind-hearted. We were given a lot of opportunities to get to know how people struggle to make ends meet in the communities around us. We were given many chances to make a difference in a few lives. I am sure that these efforts and the willingess to lend a helping hand will not vapourize like dreams but stay embedded in our minds for a long time to come.
Therefore dear parents and beloved teachers, thank you once again for the light you have shone on our paths; it shall be our beacon of hope when clouds obscure the sun. Thank you for the seeds scattered on good soil; they will surely sprout, grow, multiply and yield a great harvest. Thank you for your love; for even in our moments of rebellion we still believe in the goodness you have reserved for us in your hearts. There shall be a come back home. God bless you all. Thank you.
Good parenting does not happen by chance. Children need love but they also need some things more. I am presenting those things as 4 vital P’s of good parenting:
Pray for your child. There is no greater way to bless your child than commit his or her life to God’s hands.
Praise your child. Children need genuine appreciation. Instead of finding fault all the time and criticizing your children, try to make an effort to praise him or her for the good things he or she does.
Push your child. Every child grows up and finds a comfort zone. Push your child to move beyond that and excel in life. They might be hesitant to grab an opportunity. You can then push them to do so.
Play with your child. A child values nothing greater than the presence of his or her parents with them at play. It creates a bonding that time will not be able to erode.
To conclude, pray for your child, praise your child, push your child, and play with your child are the simple but 4 vital P’s of good parenting.
Bad habits give you pleasure. But as with everything there is a price tag. Nothing comes free of cost. Think about how the bad habit will take its toll on your life.
Bad habits have triggers. Certain people or situations compel you to indulge in bad habits. The best thing you can do is to identify the triggers and avoid them.
Bad habits can take hold of you when you are alone and feel lonely. Therefore try to build good friendships or engage in creative hobbies or sports.
Bad habits mostly take hold of you because you have no purpose in life. Do not be idle. Do something positive. Work towards a meaningful goal.
Bad habits can make you feel like a failure. But there is good news for you. If you can rise up one more time and fight one more round, you are no failure.
A child who grows up listening to bedtime stories is prepared for success in later life.
Great stories of the world not only can help a child get to know the cultures of the world, it can also help the child with developing good language and communication skills too.
Perhaps what stories do the most is to help a child know that happiness and sadness are episodes that recur in life.
Stories prepare children to enjoy the good things in life and hold on during tough times. In that sense stories are the best training a child can have.
Stories teach us about lasting values like love and friendship, about the joy of being lost and then found, about the thrill of coming back home and finding acceptance as in the classic story of the prodigal son that Jesus told.
Above all stories give us hope. They paint for us life experiences and enable us to look at it from outside.
Each good ending helps us to hope and believe that it will turn out well for us at the end in spite of all twists and turns that happen before that.
Let me conclude by saying that life without stories is tasteless like the white of an egg. And a story a day brings happiness again!
Children love to play. Studies are boring to them. But they need to study anyway. And here are some tips to make studies interesting for children.
The first step to make studies interesting for children is to make them believe in a dream. Often parents would love to impose their dreams on children. Sometimes it works out; but often it might not. If parents can try to understand the talent, passion, and ambition of the child, they can possibly help him or her understand in what area of life he or she will excel in. And then tie their studies to that dream.
The second step to make stduies intersting for children is to make them have a learning methodology which is fun. Just for an example, what if questions are asked in a professional quiz format with audio visual rounds and other stuff it is made of and rewards given at the end! Or what if the child is asked to take a class to parents or siblings on the topic studied in as creative ways as possible! Teach your children how to make an attempt at inter-disciplinary learning early in life by showing them analogies from other branches of study.
The third step to make studies interesting for children is to help them understand the importance and habit of preparing summary notes from the texts they learn from. The notes can include their own version of shorthand, symbolic representations, tree diagrams, flow charts and so on. Along with that they should be taught how to effectively retrieve information from these notes taken. This resource can be time-saving as well as enable scoring of high marks in examinations.
The last step and perhaps the most important step is to never compare your child with anyone else. Not even their siblings. This is absolutely negative, destructive and of no use. Give allowances for mistakes and failures. And keep on affirming that you believe in your children and that they will come up in life with flying colours.
One day they will make you proud with their achievements and thank you for believing in them.
Online classes have changed the way children learn. It has also given rise to the practice of fashionable cheating. It is considered smart; but is it?
Many parents without second thoughts help students, especially young children with answers. And children get good marks. Parents are proud and children are happy.
But what are the consequences of this?
First of all, truth no longer has any weightage in the mind of the child. He or she is shown by example that it is ok to cheat by his or her parents who are most likely their primary role models. In this situation, how can you expect a child to grow up without resorting to greater malpractices in future?
Sadly, honesty is the best policy will remain in this growing up generation, a proverb to be recited and not to be practised.
Secondly, children will grow up thinking that getting full marks is quite easy if one is smart enough to invent ways to cheat. He or she will never be able to appreciate an objective evaluation whenever that happens. A child under the present fashionable cheating contexts grows up with no understanding of how to cope with mistakes,failures, criticism,rejection and unfavourable comparisons too.
Sad to say, a child grows up with a false estimate about one’s own intelligence and academic knowledge.
Thirdly, parents need to remember that children will grow up soon. They will learn to stand on their own feet. The Internet will become a gateway for them to a virtual world where one’s safety depends much on self-discipline. A child growing up learning fashionable cheating will soon master the craft of doing more tricks online that can bring real heartache for everyone concerned.
In all earnestness let me say that then it will be too late to correct.
Finally, what many parents are not aware of is that online video conferencing or online classes are tricky. Sometimes there can occur unexpected bugs. While they think that audio is mute, it actually might not be. When they help children write exams the instructions they give and the answers they whisper to their children are all heard by many. Many teachers might even be able to know which child is being helped. In this context, does fashionable cheating sound nice to you?
It is quite natural to be anxious about your children. Your children are God’s gift to you. So they are precious. And they are the future.
At their young age, it is as if God has entrusted you with the awesome responsibility to raise them up as God-fearing citizens. It is up to you that they look not for words of advice but for a model and an example which they can emulate and put to practice as well.
Here are a few tips that might prove useful.
#1. Celebrate the uniqueness of your child.
It is quite understandable that you want your child to excel and win the first rank if possible every time. At the same time, it is more important to realize that your child is very unique and different in his talent, temperament, attitudes and passion from even his or her brother or sister.
Therefore do not fall into the trap of comparing your child with anyone else. That is playing with fire. Remember, a dog is not a lion and a lion is not an eagle nor is an eagle a dolphin. Each has its own unique role to play.
So the first responsibility you have is to simply cherish your child as a unique person.
#2. Appreciate your child even for small things he or she does well.
Often we shout at our children; don’t we? Even though we know we should not vent our frustration or anger resulting from a bad day at our work on our children, we do that. And often we feel sorry later.
But the best thing you can do for your child is to praise him and appreciate him for any small thing he does well. The more you do it, genuinely, the more confident your child will become. He will have a greater sense of worth and dignity.
Children who lack appreciation at home and feel rejected seek acceptance somewhere else and in teenage years can land up in bad company quickly. Why? Simply because there he or she is accepted.
So shower you children with praise and appreciation at every opportunity you get.
#3. Spend time with your children.
It is a wrong thinking that your child is satisfied with the best electronic gadgets that you buy for him. Honestly, this is absolutely wrong. Buying the most expensive and trendy things for your child might advertise your money power; but it does not satisfy your child’s basic and most important need. That is quality time you spend with them.
Remember time flies. And before you know it, and because you were busy building your status in society and empires of your own, your child would have grown up into adulthood. And then it is useless to cry that you could spend much time with them in their young age.
Remember the greatest gift you can give your child is the quality time you spend with him or her.
#4. Listen to your children.
If you don’t listen to your children, even if what they talk is silly and even plain nonsense, the day will come when they will totally shut up. And then you will never know what they think, who their friends are, what are their difficulties at school or college or the mental pressures they undergo because of their studies or a wrong relationship.
God has given you two ears so that you will listen more than you talk. It is not bravado to tell your children that you are busy and yell at them to stop talking. Encourage them to speak. Let them open up. Give them the freedom to talk to you about matters that trouble their heart. In this way you show respect to them as well.
If you listen to your children today, tomorrow you will not to have to regret that they are not listening to you.
#5. Take time to understand your child’s passion, talent and ambition.
As parents, we like our children to fit into the society’s mould. So we pressurize them to become doctors when they want to be engineers, we compel them to do civil services when they want to be journalists and so on. Of course, there are times when the wisdom of parents should overrule the wrong choices children make.
But know that children excel in what they are passionate about. So as parents try to understand what their skill sets are. Help them to have good hobbies which are creative, involves physical activity and involves teaming up with others if possible.
This is far better than giving them a tablet or laptop or expensive mobile and allowing them to chat or play video games on it for hours. And it is often equally dangerous to try to make children do what we were good at or try to realize our unfulfilled dreams through them (there are occasions when it works but mostly it is not worth the try).
I have often quarreled with parents because they often label their children negatively in front of others. One of their favourite labels is this: “Oh, my child is an introvert.” This is shocking because most of the time this has nothing to do with reality.
Maybe the child is a bit shy. So what? Given the right environment like a change of school or given more time to play team games with friends, he or she will come up fantastically well. The more parents repeat this kind of negative labelling in front of others the child starts believing a lie about himself. The child goes on to become an introvert.
Never label your children. Put a guard over your mouth so that you resist the temptation to label your child negatively especially in front of others.
#7. Never forget to pray for your children daily.
So many children who went to wayward living during their teenage years have come back to their parents and to the forgiving love of God because of the prayers of their parents–especially the heartfelt, tearful, prayers of their mothers!
When your children go to school or college commit them and especially that day into God’s care. Pray that they will be given wisdom and discernment to face life’s challenges and also study well. Pray that they will not be drawn to evil things, and bad company; for the Bible warns, “”Bad company corrupts good character.”1
Knowing that parents are praying for them is a great encouragement for children and a surety of your love and care for them.
“See that you do not look down on one of these little ones. For I tell you that their angels in heaven always see the face of my Father in heaven” – Jesus Christ.
Red says STOP. When the light is red, do not act; do not move, do not proceed. You can escape so many tears and heartbreaks in life; if you simply learn to see Red.
There are many who will offer you your tomorrow today. And you might feel the irresistible pull to go along.
But wait a minute. Did you forget to see the colour Red? Did you forget that one simple yet power-packed word you can and should say? NO! “No” is the bold word you should say when you see red!
Remember that the best things in life are worth waiting for. Don’t seek instant pleasure and satisfaction in anything. Secret things can thrill; but they also kill. It is one moment’s thoughtless adventure but a lifelong journey down to the depths of hell.
So learn to see red. And when you see red, say NO.
Know that consequences are there for every stand you take and every move you make. But you have got everything to lose if you dance to the tune others play for you.
So stand strong. And be bold. A fierce lion-like stance once you say NO might be your only hope.
As a young girl, there is nothing you need to learn that is more important than the word NO. Always, keep it ready like an arrow pulled back on the string. Shoot it without a second thought.
It will hurt some; but it is worth the risk. For it is your safety that matters most. A glass jar; if it breaks might not just be the same even if you glue it back again. So be bold enough to say NO.
Let me conclude. Life is beautiful; but there is red everywhere. Trust in God; be bold, and say NO when you see red.
The first thing to teach your childis to look up at a clear night sky. And not bent down his/her head on to mobile screens. Ask him/her to wonder about the star-studded sky. Let him/her think, how did it all come there? Who is behind it all? What holds it together?
The second thing is to teach your child to speak the truth always. Tell him/her mistakes happen to all good men and women. Ask him/her to take responsibility for them. Teach him/her that it takes courage to speak the truth.
The third thing to teach your child is to keep trying. It is up to us parents to motivate a child to keep on attempting to do things. There is lot of truth in the saying, “Try again and again until you succeed.”
The fourth thing to teach your child is the value of patience. A child thinks that good things are his/hers automatically for the asking. Teach him/her that he/she needs to learn to wait and be patient for good things to come his/her way.
The fifth thing to teach your child is how to fail. Tell him/her not to consider himself/herself as a failure even if others label him/her so. Teach him/her that more learning happens through failures than successes. Let him/her know that there is nothing to be ashamed about failure if he/she has given his/her best effort.
The sixth thing to teach your child is never to lose hope.Teach a child to say NO to despair. Tell him/her not to worry for he/she has a heavenly Father watching over him/her. Let him/her learn that even after the darkest night the sun will rise.
The seventh thing to teach your childis to strive for excellence in thought, speech, and action. Tell him/her to persevere in the good and noble pursuits of life, career, hobbies, and relationships. Let him/her learn to never lower his/her standards.
Finally, I cannot say, there is nothing more to teach a child. For there are lots more like habits, respect, character etc. But if you ask me to add one more; it will be the importance of discipline in life. Teach him/her to discipline himself/herself to have a worthy purpose in life. Let him/her know that it is not the beginning that counts but how one finishes well in life. Let him/her discipline himself/herself with the thought of touching the finishing tape on a note of triumph.
These are not all; but even if these are all, it will yield sweet fruit for all the toil and labour and hard work that your child will have put in to succeed in life. A thankful heart, without doubt, will make it taste all the more sweet.
Social networking sites such as Facebook and instant messaging services like WhatsApp have made building relationships easy, instant and colourful. Yet children should not close their eyes to the dangers in it.
First and foremost,never add a stranger to your friend list. You have no way no knowing what his or her true identity is. He can be a link in an online racket or he can be part of a terrorist organisation. You never know.
Secondly, never reveal private information regarding your identity or location. For example, if you make it easy for strangers to know who your friends are, which are the places you hang out with them, and what your pastimes are, someone can easily track you. Therefore make sure that you fine-tune your privacy settings to make it nearly impossible for strangers to gather information about you.
Thirdly, do not share private photographs on social media. As a warning, know that if your smart phone is given for software upgrade or repair, a techie with wrong motive can easily transfer all your photos including deleted ones and chat logs. Several instances of such photos and chats being used for slandering people have been reported in recent times.
Finally and most importantly, if at all anyone tries to blackmail you do not panic and do not try to fight it alone. The blackmailers would warn you to keep your mouth shut. Do not listen to them. Instead seek the help of your parents and trusted teachers at once. Open up and talk. They will help you. And make sure you remember– suicide is NOT an option!
Let me conclude by asking you to do one thing: If someone adds you to a chat group where you feel the content shared or discussed is inappropriate for you, exit the group immediately!
