Opportunity..

Varsha has a book called,'Call of the wild' by Jack London this year (3rd standard). We thought we will check out what the story is about. She wanted me to read out the story. The story is about Buck (dog) and his journey with all twists and turns. It started with how he was kidnapped and then went to how he was beaten up etc and all this was in lot of details. I was feeling very uncomfortable reading the passages where he was being beaten up and how other dogs mauled one of the dogs etc. First thought which came to me was that

•  this was not an appropriate book for a 8yr old and how could the school prescribe such a book. 
• If I am uncomfortable reading it, how would an 8yr old feel about this.

I got stuck with this thought and found that Varsha was listening to the story with interest. I realised that it was 'ME' who was feeling all this because I did not like the gory details, at the same time I questioned myself,' Was I  focusing only on one aspect of the story and not even looking at the other things the story has to offer?'

I was working from certain beliefs :

• I  am uncomfortable reading such material as these kind of reading is not appropriate (it has to do with me and who says so)
• Child of 8yrs should not be exposed to certain kinds of content (who says so)
• They are not capable of processing it (is that really true?)

The awareness that I was working with the underlying belief that 'I know the best for my child' helped me to relax and as I kept reading the story, I found  that the story was also about the human and animal relationship, how the dog was surviving by being flexible, how he was able to understand things around him and work on it.

AHA! Now, it looked more like an opportunity for me and  my child to learn about different relationships, about being adaptable, about different worlds that exist, about different characteristics humans and animals possess.

Wow! there is so much to learn from this story. Here I was focusing on just one part of the story and making a mountain of a molehill.

I am not going to limit myself with my beliefs but look at the opportunity of learning something more. There may be still certain parts of the story which bring about an uncomfortable feeling but I can accept it as part of  who I am and still move forward.