A WORD (OR TWO HUNDRED) FROM THE EDITOR

Get a bunch of grandparents together and the first thing they will do – after whipping out their phones to share the latest photographs of their grandchildren – is confess that the best part of grandparenting is that one gets to hand them back to their parents at the end of a visit.

Ours only to enjoy, the hard work of disciplining can be done by the parents! I’ve said so too, on countless occasions. But that is not strictly true. We observe and we teach, in our own ways.

Grandparents have the time and the leisure to enjoy a child’s vocabulary and mind develop. As a parent, I was too busy, too focused on whether our sons were meeting their milestones to really enjoy the milestone itself. Crawling, walking, the first few words...they were all noted and of course we were thrilled, but then it was on to the next. But now, I drop everything to spend time with our grandson when he visits. Lunch? I’ve made his favourite paneer or puri bhaji, the others can wait! Homework? He can go home and do it! I have the luxury of time to cuddle up and read with him, talk to him about the fantastic creatures he sees in his dreams, allow him to pick a new screensaver and install it on my phone, teach him names of flowers in my garden. And so on.

A year or so ago, he was playing Snakes and Ladders with our younger son and was upset when his uncle won. “But I always win!” he protested. True enough, but we were trying to move from letting him win every game because he is the baby in the family to teaching him that in real life, that’s not how it works.

If he got so upset when someone else won, his friends wouldn’t want to play with him, I said. I encouraged him to say, “Congratulations, chacha, good job!” and then ask if he would like to play another game.

It took a little time, but I persevered with some success.

“I don’t want to say congratulations,” he muttered finally, head down. “I want to say, ‘Thank you for winning, I’ll win next time’,” neatly combining what he had been taught to say to guests at his birthday party, “Thank you for coming,” and what he really wanted to do, which was to win!

As someone once said, a child is closer to life than you are. When a child comes into your life, it is time to relearn life, not teach them your ways. And also that, children don’t listen to you, they observe you.

In one of his columns, Reverend Tony Zekveld wrote that kids are like plants, they need guiding and pruning.

As a gardener, I understand and appreciate that analogy. You can let a vine or shrub grow wild and rampant, or you can help shape it to encourage its best flowering.

The same applies to kids.

Happy Mother’s Day!

Happy South Asian Month!

SHAGORIKA EASWAR