empowering your children

Last Saturday morning, I was laying down in my bed and reading when my youngest walked in to my room holding a steaming cup of tea in her hand.

“Good morning Mama, I made you tea” She said.

I can honestly tell you, it was perfectly brewed with the right amount of milk and sugar.

“So?” She asked

“Absolutely perfect” I replied. and  very casually  she mentioned “By the way, I spilled some sugar on the counter, but I cleaned it”

But the trip to this perfectly brewed cup of tea was not something that happened overnight.

In the beginning, we used to have pretend tea party with those tiny plastic teapot and cups, then we had cold watered down tea and then in the last few years I drank tons of tea with too much milk, too much sugar and sometimes too strong.

As a child/teenager, I only cooked when my mom wasn’t home, because I couldn’t stand her criticism. She expected perfection, even though I have had no experience in cooking and she was a lousy cook herself. I would have loved to make a cup of coffee for her when she came home from work. The only time I ever made coffee for her was when she was down with flu and even then she  berated me and asked ” ethu chappi ( chaya + kappi) ano atho otta vellam  ano? ( is this coffee or did you just grab a cup of drain water because what I made only looked like coffee) And if I spilled a microscopic portion of sugar, all hell would have broken loose and my mom  would have chanted the rest of the day “kashu marathel alledi valarunney” ( money doesn’t grow on trees)

I believe it is my job to empower my children. It is unreasonable to expect a child to do everything perfect. I am a perfectionist. My son used to make so much spelling and grammatical mistakes when he was in grade 1 and 2 and it used to bother me a lot. I will never forget his teacher telling me ” he has a life time to learn, don’t fret the small things”. Today, he is giving a talk at his school. He only told me that as he was leaving home this morning. I do not know the topic and I don’t even know what it is about and I don’t think he wrote a speech. I have a feeling he is going to wing it like he did last weekend  when he gave a talk at a local university about his robot. He was the youngest speaker. Ideally, I would have loved to sit with him and make him write his speech, after all he was talking in front of academia. But I didn’t, because he is only 13 and he doesn’t need to talk like a 42 year old.. He has a lifetime to learn..

I saw this article and thought I would share it here

Empowering children ( http://blogs.kidspot.com.au/villagevoices/how-to-help-your-kids-own-their-life-from-the-very-start/)

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2 thoughts on “empowering your children

  1. That was a great message. I will try to remember it next time I am irritated. He has a lifetime to learn. Thanks.

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