Before
my marriage, I was in USA and my boss was an American. He used to tease me
about Indian arranged marriage system and I used to respond to him that still
Indian marriage system has better results compared to western marriages where
divorce rates are worse than flipping a coinJ. Albeit, he had suggested me to read
a book – Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. From that early read, I got
few pointers. But the most important one stuck to me was women are like waves.
From
raising a special child point of view, there are quite few instances when a mother
goes through emotional upheaval. Sometimes, they tend to sink into a depression
when they feel it is time for emotional cleansing and resolution. Such
situations prop up all of sudden without much notice. Houston’s George Brown
Convention center when he was hardly 2 years old. My wife, Sheetal tried doing every
bit to dress him meticulously along with props butter-pot, flute etc. Yet he
did nothing on stage and in fact, he kept on crying on the stage. Sheetal’s friend’s child won first prize who
was actually a week younger to Shlok. As a father I felt disappointed and though
I was still rationalize the result being logical and correct. But somehow
Sheetal was crying at least for an hour on our way back to home. I realized it
was NOT about the prize, but a feeling of raising special child was slowly
sinking in for the mother…
At
such times they may become utterly negative in their outlook, dwelling on not
only the special child but every little problem which troubles them. They
suspend their normal giving natures, demanding the right to express their
feelings and not to be left on their own. At this point a father has to put on
listening hat for a short while (believe me it’s most difficult thing for
men!). If supported and allowed enough time to express and release their
negative feelings, they will begin to feel happier again and return to their
usual loving selves. So in a nutshell, it a father’s responsibility to handles
such delicate moments and maintain emotional balance within the family.
Other
area which requires quite attention is if mother is caring for special child,
then father should pay little more attention to normal kids in the family.
Ideally, these roles needs to switched though-out day & week so as to
maintain decent focus on needs of normal kids as well. There needs to be some
special activities that both parents needs to do for the normal kid as
eventually that will help in creating good bonding within family over a long
period of time.
Other
influence I had early on was 7 Habits of Highly Successful People authored by
Dr. Stephen Covey, an all-time best-seller well accepted in western world. Dr.
Covey has pointed out apt examples and different mindsets of a manager vs. a
leader. In larger context, we can see “special children” are like “products” to
be launched in “markets” (society!) and mothers become manager of implementing
day-to-day processes at least in the early phase of life. In that sense, father’s role comes down to
supporting the mother for maintaining daily routine and providing some
structure for handling the situations efficiently. For examples, as an Engineer,
whenever we are faced with Shlok’s stubborn and difficult behavior, I try to
address it with making simple check-lists for monitoring his behavior and
channelizing his energy towards a meaningful task or activity that he would
enjoy.
More
importantly, dads should take initiative in establishing long ranging goal,
visions for the child in respective developmental phase of the child and follow
through with providing necessary structure along the way to achieve these goals
in family. For instance, we have itched
out a goal for Shlok few months ago that by 18-20 yrs, he should be working
independently at least for 4-5 hours daily in any field of his choice or whatever
opportunities market offers for such individuals. Another long-tem goal is to
create a Trust or similar mechanism for him over next 12-15 years. So all our
thoughts, planning and actions in daily life need to be aligned to the mid and
long-term goals.
It is indeed heartening to see super dads like
Mr. Aditya Tiwari creating huge difference in spreading awareness about special
children in India. It really requires a big heart to adopt a special child
while being single and even to go to the extent of leaving job for caring for that
child! Yet traditionally, father’s role in Indian society has been very
limited. With more nuclear families, it is very prudent that dads take larger
role in kid’s development more so for special children! “One solution fits all” could never be the situation.
So every family has to customize role of each parent whether it is 60/40,
70/30; but it surely cannot be 90/10…
We
as parents are custodians of our children’s future and we need to continue
doing a tad better than yesterday…
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For Comments & Suggestion, Please Contact - Sachin Jakhotia /C.+91 83088 79900/ sachinjakhotia@gmail.com
Very true & you said it rightly✅👍
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