Reading Time: 5 minutes
Parenting is an ongoing challenge. Anumita draws her inspiration from the music teacher of her younger son in middle school. The entire orchestra followed her silent instructions. Learn more about what and how of the silent instructions, in the weekly column, exclusively for Different Truths.
During one of his pre-spring concert, I was at my seat ahead of time and watched the first group of young musicians take their seats at their respective places on the stage. They were all very busy tuning their instruments and fixing the music sheets on the stands. I watched as their teacher came on the stage and she was listening and helping some of the children doing the tuning of their instruments. There must be some 25 to 30 kids in each group. If you are familiar with the orchestra ensemble seating, you will know that the first violinists sit on the left side of the audience, then the second violinists in the center with the viola players. The right side of the semi-circle is occupied by the cellists and the bass players.
I watched as the teacher’s petite figure moved around the musicians, she was calm and so were the children. She was listening to the tuning of the first violinist and I watched her just turn her head a fraction towards the bass players at te ver end of the opposite side direction.
I was amazed at the discipline she commanded from the children. She never raised her voice, she never furrowed her brows, and the whole group was attuned to her tiny actions. A nod, a flick of her hand or just a look and they knew just what is to be done. My respect for the teacher grew leaps and bound.
Sitting among the audience, I could not help wonder why we cannot implement this kind of arrangement in our day to day life. If we did not need to scream, yell or even say things that are to be done to our children at home, would it not be a wonderful thing?
It would, and it is not hard to put that system to work. Yes, it needs a bit of practice and a bit of planning.
At the end of each day, I am so tired and so are the children. This must be true for most families. Most of
To make that possible, I decided to talk with my children about how to be organised in their day to day work, and we worked out few strategies. None of the worked-out plans are permanent, with the change of schedules we need to be flexible to change things around. Perhaps, rearrange, add or delete some of the thought-out processes, from time to time.
Like most homes, mornings are very busy. Kids have school, parents must go work, breakfast, lunch packing and getting everything done in time. Often the household is in a frenzy and tempers run high. If the day starts with chaos, there is a chance that the whole day would run on that negative note. We all need a good start for our days.
Remembering my kid’s music teacher, I called for a family meeting of sorts. Love those meetings, as I get
The first few d
Like the mornings, we have small schedules set up for the rest of the days. Yes, there are variations, as no days are the same. I do not want the family to be screaming and yelling our instructions all the time. A nod or a simple reminder on their cell phones work too. I synchronise his sports schedule, tuition times, his volunteer times, his test and quizzes and all his extracurricular activities on the calendars of both our phones.
With the increase in pressure for children in their school life, they need to be aware how to handle time and not get frazzled up. This applies to the parents too. Each one of us has hectic schedule to keep up with. We all want to do everything right and in time. The best way to make this whole song and dance of our day to day life run as smoothly as possible is to set up a routine and avoid shouting and screaming as much as possible. Let us try to orchestrate our day to day life harmoniously.
©Anumita Chatterjee Roy
Photos from the internet.
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