Letting go

Varun has his tests going on. Yesterday after coming back from school he tells me that he has an English test today. Till 7pm I did not see him with any of his books. He followed his routine of eating, watching tv, going down to play.
Even after all this he was reading other things but not English. I just had to understand this. I reminded him that he had a test and his reply was,' I know, I finished studying at school in the free period'. Well! now what?

I checked my thoughts and it struck to me that I think it is better to revise if you get time(my belief).I decided to let go of this belief and keep quiet.

In the morning he gets up and says,' I will freshen up fast and then revise for the test'. He got ready, had time to revise all on his own. (his motivation.. his ways)

My beliefs letting go.....

Acceptance

What I understand is :
Acceptance without any condition attached. Acceptance is not a tool to be used for some other unsaid objective of ours.

Something which happened in the morning today:

Varsha was not in a great frame of mind and was crying. She had a tiff with her brother and wanted me to scold him. She kept telling me that 'no one loves me, you only love bhaiya'.. 'you don't scold him..but you scold me' etc.. I reflected what she was telling me,' you think I don't love you.. you think i don't scold bhaiya etc' and kept asking her how she felt about it.
After sometime, she calmed down.. hugged me and ran off to get ready.

I did not stop her from feeling what she was feeling
I did not even try to identify her feeling
I did not stop her thoughts ..just made her aware about it
I did not think about her getting ready for school

Would this qualify as pure acceptance??
Would it help if children are able to distinguish their thoughts from their feelings?
Have to keep working on it..

It is fun to learn this way (part 2)

Varsha and her friend wanted to study together. They started by answering questions.. jumping from one place to the other, running behind one another and suddenly Varsha came up with an idea that they could make a project on 'people who help us'.
They both wanted to take the project to school and show their teacher, though there was no such project to be made.
They were on the job for more than an hour ... laughing, talking, drawing, writing. We talk about children not being able to concentrate but here I could see them totally focused on what they were doing (motivation theirs! goal theirs!)

They were learning the fun way !




Inspired by her brother's project

Its fun to study this way..

Varsha and her friend decided to do their homework together the other day. They had to guess the length of figures in the textbook and then measure and write it. They were laughing, pulling each others legs, joking and at the same time doing the work.
The child who was also there was enjoying what was happening. He said,'it is fun to study this way.' So, varsha and her friend replied saying that studying was fun for them.
He immediately got up and said that he was going home. After five minutes he came back with his maths book and said that he also wanted to join in and study this way.

Where there is a fun element in what we do.. then what we are doing is not work at all.
After that homework we even managed to work on hindi the same way. But, the question which comes up is : Is this possible all the time? or If I accept varsha's this way of working, she will also be accepting to work in other ways? hmm..

Navaratri at home

My learning..

The cultural programme was the latest talk in our campus. Lots of parents were trying to get their children to participate in some prog or the other. Older kids were forming groups and coming up with their own skits, dances. I was the lazy one .. not too interested. Varun told me that he was not going to participate this time and I was like ah! relaxed... well! it could not be that simple :-) Varsha wanted to dance. She was insistent that this time she wanted to be on stage and dance.

I had to do something this time.After some searching came to know that one of my friends was preparing for a dance. I requested her and she obliged. Varsha was excited and eager to learn. In four days varsha learnt the steps and she would be dancing and singing all the time. The D-Day came. I was little worried whether she would be comfortable in her costume (she is normally very sensitive about the feel of her clothes) but today was different. She got up happy and full of life.

She got ready and there was not a single sound from her about her costume, hair. When i blundered while putting her tattoo mehndi, she actually told me,'It's ok ... atleast there is something on my hand.. we should be happy with what we have.'

When she was dancing on the stage I could see her smiling and really enjoying herself. She wanted to dance.. she found a way and nothing stopped her from enjoying every moment of it. My goal... I find the way

Varsha is second in the line with brown/red dupatta

Varsha's bee story

It was amazing to watch varsha do this project on her own, using her imagination. She showed confidence while drawing the borders, writing the content, drawing and then colouring it.