Zen mother

Sharing a first hand experience of how a mind shift in split of a second makes a great difference with Parenting.

Scene: I was multi-tasking on a weekend and wanted Adi to start with essay writing practice as she had an essay contest to participate in another one week. Adi was playing with N (next door girl) ignoring my plea to think of a prompt for the writing.

We have procrastinated the practice enough and I was so desperate to get her started on that day. My plan was to make her write one essay every day till the day before the contest so that she would have enough hands-on with the writing style.

Back to the scene, as it might sound normal to any mother, I reached my threshold after all that plea and was about to explode. Then, in a split of a second, the zen state took over me and I asked politely “who is willing to take up a challenge?”. I kept the challenge details as a surprise for some time, let it brew up and then spilled the beans when the girls couldn’t stand it anymore.

The challenge was to write on a prompt in 30 minutes and my phone was used as a timer. Not a minute more, not a minute less. Both the girls were ready with their writing materials before I could think of a topic. We were very strict on when to start the timer, pause timer while taking a break for nature’s call and every second was counted very carefully but end of the session, the essay was written beautifully.

There, I let out a big sigh of relief and one of my biggest worry of how to make this girl practice essay writing was put to peace.

On the following days, the girls were looking forward to the essay writing session. They liked my feedback, smileys and doodle on the paper and even wrote two essays on one day.

What I loved the most about this whole exercise is that I got to learn a piece of their mind and things that really impacted them in every essay. Some of the topics were

“Write about an event that affected you in the past” – Adi wrote about her fruit themed 8th birthday party that I arranged for her. I was jumping in joy upon reading the essay as she has recollected every detail of the party and how much she loved it.

“What one thing you will invent to make this world a better place” – their creativity was amazing with this essay.

“If you have a day to spend for yourself, how will you spend it?”

We also went creative with topics on certain days. It turned out to be a lovely exercise and all three of us enjoyed the whole process. I am very sure that my girl wrote the final essay very well.

Imagine the same scenario if I had let out my anger. We would have either had a terrible one week in the name of preparation with painful essay writing sessions or just gave up on the contest. I can’t imagine. For once, I was very happy and assumed myself as a zen mother. **If I may call myself so for at least few minutes**

Cross posted at IMC

 

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