I love to play. I am not a
national champion in any game. In fact, I can play only a few games, and am not
very good in any game that I play. But I love to go out and play.
I am blessed, in a way. My
job ensures that I regularly interact with many champions and aspiring sportsmen
on a regular basis. I believe that some of their enthusiasm and love for game
rubs on me. I have started enjoying the concept of playing, and I am physically
more active than most of my colleagues.
A spinoff of this
situation is that while most parents are rushing their children from school to tuitions,
I encourage my daughters to go and sweat it out.
Let me tell you about my
elder daughter’s typical day. She gets up in the morning – after a lot of coercion,
I should add, and my wife and I have to shout our lung out to ensure that she
is in time for the school. She is rarely late, though. In fact, she looks
forward to school – speaks volumes about our success in the choice of school
and art of parenting.
At school, she studies and
plays and shouts and fights with her friends and gets dirty. She is not very aggressive
– we have to keep coercing her towards greater aggression in her sports and her
dealing with “mischievous friends”. She has few friends, but shares almost
everything with the few friends that she has. In her previous school, she was a
part of basketball team and had to stay behind to practice. However, her
present school does not have such facility.
She comes back exhausted after
school. I have tried to encourage her to have something to drink on the way
back, like a tetra-pack of flavoured milk, but she does not often have it. What
happens next depends on how much energy she is left with. Sometimes, she wants
to take a nap even before she has changed. We try to ensure that she eats
something before that. On most other days, she quietly sits for lunch. After lunch,
she goes for her sports lesson. She is not very regular, as she misses it when
she has her siesta. This frustrates her coach who feels that she has a lot of
potential. I try to encourage her – and my wife says that I push her too
hard.
After games and bath, we
try to get her to study. Once again, this is surprisingly not too difficult. Our
focus is on getting the homework done. While she sometimes struggles with the
volume of work in maths, she does not usually face too much problem in any
subject. Whenever she comes up with a concept that she is struggling with, we
gather our resources and try to get her concepts right. we succeed most of the
times. In case of further, or unresolved doubts, we encourage her to discuss
with her friends as well as teacher at school. Till now, this has never failed
her.
Games take a couple of
hours post school, and studies take another hour or so, although both are
marked by lots of flexibility and non – uniformity. At this stage, it is time
to eat and sleep. We try to get her to dining table by 8 and get her ready for
bed by 8:30.
She has developed a nice bedtime
routine, something that I am very happy about. She makes up her bag for the
following day, gets her uniform in order, brushes her teeth, and goes to bed with
a book in hand. These books are stories – fiction or history not from the
coursework, and she reads for 15 – 30 minutes every night before falling
asleep.
I have tried to explain to
her that sports and physical activity are as important as reading for proper
development. I don’t think that she understands. She enjoys her school, she
enjoys sports, and she enjoys reading.
She is enjoying growing
up. And that is all that matters.
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