Reflection of a father on her child

What is making Meena angry?

Meena is eager to play without any adult instruction or interference.

When we moved in to our home 10 months before. Her grandparents were there with us, Meena's ammachi used to take her down in the evening to play with the children (very few who came out) from the flats. Most of them were little elder than meena, meena was just 3.5 years old then. Though the children were playing in harmony, one particular mother of a child was always interfering with the children's playing. She would interfere unabashedly in their play, comment something and spoil their play. Meena has an attraction towards other children slippers, she would wear it for some time and give it back. That woman couldn't tolerate this though it wasn't her child's slippers she would call the concerned child and ask her why she is allowing Meena to wear her slippers. This is just one instance; we could always hear the lady's loud voice ordering this or that to the children who are trying to play. We saw this for 2 week and we decided it's better to avoid playing when this adult bully is there. Since this adult (child-bully) happens to be our neighbour too I have been observing that she keeps driving her child who should be around 9yrs old from morning (5am) till night like a ring-master in the circus. The child is made to go through so many classes that she looks tired always. She is usually unresponsive if we smile or talk to her when her mother is around but talks to us freely when she is not. At that same time fortunately AGATHEE meetings started to happen and meena was able to play with other children (Iyal, kayal, kathir, varsha, achu, aara, rakshan) without much adult interference. This came us a great relief to us like a oasis in the desert.

At this age whenever she plays with other children -`She keeps going around and around, she keeps giggling for no reason, she wants to hide and wants to be found, she wants to be lifted by an elder child and wants to do the same with the younger ones. While playing with other children, for no particular reason friends becomes foes and after some time foes become friends and the cycle repeats."

we take outdoors to park sometimes whenever there is no cold, cough or fever. Being without some kind of illness itself is becoming rare nowadays for all of us. In the park she plays swing, slide, run around, make friends and try to play with them till their amma or appa takes them away. Then she is frustrated and says “appa there is no-one playing with me”. Inside the house we are always worried about her safety and hence try to restrict her from running, jumping, and somersaulting on the bed, table and sofa. If we are working and if she asks us to come and play, we ignore her which makes her get frustrated and she starts throwing tantrums.

She is angry when appa refuses to buy chocolate while returning from school, she thinks he is a complete moron and mumbles to herself that her friends appas are all getting a dairy milk every day and why can't he do just the same. she is angry when amma rations her pencils, sketch pens and other craft items inside the cupboard, she wonders why not she allow her to access everything. she wonders why are we talking all the time without including her. While eating, while cooking, while going to sleep they keep on talking but not ask my stories or opinion. We might think what we talk is adult stuff and it is not any concern to her but this she takes it to her heart and feels annoyed all the time. while playing whenever she runs out of our sight, we show annoyance to her which irritates her a lot. She sometimes defies us completely without any reason and refuses to hear anything we say. There are times when we are completely exhausted reasoning with her and sometimes end up spanking her which ends up creating ill-feeling in every one of us. At these times she pushes us to the edge and our temperament hasn't matured enough to deal with her tantrums.

Back at Grandparents home ammachi play to an extent and then both thatha and ammachi immerse themselves in watching tv. Meena sits with her thatha and watches all serials silently from afternoon to night. by the time we return to Chennai She knows all the serial's names, characters names and the stories byheart. She knows all the products sold through ads that even after 3months she would be able to recall instantly if she sees the product in the shop that she has seen this ad with thatha.

Now after coming to chennai having heard us discussing about the illness of watching tv, her favourite dialogue with thatha when talking in phone is, “I will never come to thanjavur if you watch serials, I want you to tell at least 10 stories read from books.” All these are till the next trip. As soon as she enters her grandparents’ house both thatha and meena will resist for a day or two secretly watching without me knowing, then it will be silence all over the house except for the violin or flute pathos with melodramatic dialogues, she is sitting right in front of the tv and watching everything without blinking her eyes. When appa or amma picks the remote from the children (thatha and meena) both gets frustrated.

At school except for annual day or sports day, the teachers never encourage them to play or dance or simply run around because there is no time for playing particularly for lkg and ukg. I have seen the teacher gets insecure when children play or run around. They say the management might scold them for letting the children free.

(the positive side of the school is it is not a commercial one and sincerely work towards the welfare of the child but in a traditional means like enforcing discipline. cleanliness etc.). The school has very less physical activity or hands on activity on a daily basis. And there is a lot of control physically and mentally in the name of teaching. All this add up to her already existing anger.

Recently I took them to a dance class, the dance master constantly badgered her to come and dance. He doesn't allow the child to watch first. He's so eager to make her dance on the first day itself to impress the parent watching. He keeps on asking whether the child has danced before, when I say she has performed a dance for her annual day just 2 days before he doesn't take to his ears. She went and sat near her friend kayal. They kept chatting and giggling, run around for some time, she was trying to make new friends during the intervals. An elderly child tried to lift her up. She instantly made friendship with that akka. There was a anna who helped her showing the washroom, immediately the anna became a friend to her. For all the one hour we stayed back meena never went near to the dance master no matter how much ever he tried calling her. Whatever he teaches as dance requires another write-up.

During our recent trip (unschoolers meet) to belgaum she was completely free playing all the time with other children. Since I and her had a small tiff just a day before she didn't come near me for almost 2 days. She was like an adolescent who wants to show that she can take care of herself without our support. She played, ate and occupied herself with her new friends all the times. As the days went when the initial exuberance fades away, when the conflict between friends arises, she came back to us. In the late evenings when the singing was happening, she slowly came to us and fell asleep in our lap. During the singing event she didn't have any inhibition she demanded that she be allowed to sing. She went and sang two beautiful Tamil songs - kakka paatu which she learnt from school and theni rani paatu with the help of varsha akka.

Like we say this is the times of Anthropocene (human centric world, where humans overindulgence is making other species goes extinct) this is also an adult centric world, totally insensitive to children's needs. This city, our life style, schools are all children- insensitive. Then we expect them to grow wiser (whatever that means) without conflicts when all that child is surrounded by conflicts perpetuated by adults. When a child is denied all the time to be itself how can it grow to be a self-content adult?

- Com Balamurali, Agathee