It’s not about what she didn’t tell us; it’s about what we didn’t hear her saying. It’s about how we discounted her concerns because it didn’t scale up to our measurement of a ‘real problem’ and therefore it wasn’t given the attention it deserved while we measured it on a yardstick of our experience than with a scale of her size of life!
Naisha is in 2nd grade; she is our darling girl at home, and a darling child at school too, for her friends and teachers. A compassionate little girl.
She’d been telling us how she dislike going to the same school she is now when the school re-opens. And the reason is, that she had formed an image of her maths teacher as one who will beat, less friendly and compassionate compared to her teachers now. She is not one who would mind someone being strict on homework and discipline etc., for, she has always been one who always met the standards of that sort, and also was good in maths. Her concern was in that teacher not being friendly, and that she’s at times caning the students!
Natural for any child of that age.
What we didn’t hear was the loudness of that concern. A week ago, she brought that up again in one of our conversations, and we tried to make her understand that her concerns are out of place, and that she will begin to enjoy her class etc.
That was the end of our conversation on that subject.
But it was only a beginning of her debate in her mind to find a solution that her parents couldn’t convincingly find!
She might have thought of different strategies; she might have drafted and erased in her mind different plans that would work or not work. And perhaps one morning she would have woke up with a decision, and that decision was to go and handle it by herself.
Little though it might seem to the eyes of us as grown up, that would have been a major decision for her little mind. She decided to go and ask her own maths teacher about what will it be like in the 3rd grade? She asked “ Sujata miss, who will be our maths teacher in 3rd Standard?” Sujatha miss – her maths teacher would have felt the concern in that little heart, and bent down , hugged her, and jokingly said “it will be Gayatri miss, and she will give you all nicely!!” and she added “darling, it could be either this teacher or there is another teacher, but both of them are good teachers and you don’t worry about it”
Naisha came back home, and hugged her mother and told her how happy she is and explained what happened with Sujata miss.
The incident disturbed me a lot. It made me reflect on what we are not listening but are just hearing. I heard Naisha’s concerns, but perhaps failed to listen to her feelings beneath. And then, we as parents were oblivious of her little mind working out plans to solve that concern. What would she have experienced with this thought of what to do in 3rd Grade maths class nagging in her mind? When would she have thought about the different possibilities, and what would have been her experience of that thinking process? Why didn’t we see them; were they not leaked through sighs? Were she watching television in front of us, but her eyes seeing in her mind the images of her interaction with that maths teacher she dreaded to be with? Were she not sleeping, or behind her closed eyes were the flashes of thoughts on how to relieve of this concern?
It appeared to me that it would have been really causing her discomfort which is why she decided to find her own solution the other day.
The whole thing for me is an example of how she faced a situation – big for her size of life – that caused disturbance in her, how our support as parents was not enough and convincing for what she was facing though we thought otherwise, and how she formed a strategy to find another resource to solve her problem.
I wished I knew what she was going through.
I realize more that our children are telling us their life’s experiences, through their silence and through their words. Not everything do we decipher in the midst of our busy life – a busy life that is initially meant for the welfare of these very children. It is for me as a parent to think why she is sleeping early – for it’s not sleeping, but an escape to think of her strategies, mull on her possibilities. It’s for me as a parent to look deeper on why she is not eating her food – for it’s not lack of hunger, but the fullness of concern in her little mind.
It’s not what we see. It’s beyond.
It’s not what we hear. It’s even beyond their words.
It’s about having that ability to hear what they didn’t tell us, to see what they didn’t show us, and be there for them, in their little struggles of facing the challenges of losing a penciil sharpener or sitting in the class of a particular teacher, the ability to see them in the same size and dimension as they see, than as how it appear to us.
Dear Naisha, I just want to let you know that we are sorry that we didn’t hear you; I also want to let you know that I am proud that you are able to find your way; that’s the girl we wish to see you as growing.
Love
Papa
25 March 2011
