License for Parenting?

At the risk of being termed as a 'fundamentalist' and being severely criticized and hated for the view I am about to present, I have been able to bring myself to express this today in public:

                              "There should be a license for parenting"

My reasons for saying the above line can perhaps best be explained with the following reasoning:

I am not against reproduction-it is but of course a natural process, a biological one, to be precise. But ‘parenting’ is NOT. It is not an innate ability, like the ability to eat and digest food, or to breathe, but rather an ability that requires the development of certain skill sets. I wonder what on earth makes us believe that we would make ‘good parents’ just because we are over and above a certain age now and because we possess the biological ability to become parents now. It is like saying “I am now 18 years old, eligible to drive a car and hence I drive a car”. But does that translate into “hence I am a good driver?” To be a good driver and before even learning how to drive, one needs to understand the car first (yes our process of learning how to drive a car is also flawed by the way). Once you’ve understood the car, the parts it’s made up of, how its machinery works, what type of fuel you need to put in it, then you get to learning how to drive.

Parenting is exactly like that. A basic understanding of a ‘child’ is necessary-what does a child feel, how does the child express his/her feelings, when and in what way? What does the child’s world comprise of? What are his/her dreams/ fantasies, how does his/her imagination work? How does the child feel loved-through words or actions? Then we need to learn the strategies to handle the child at various crossroads. We must learn to switch gears with them every day because there will be speed breakers and rough roads. We must learn to balance our delivery of freedom and responsibility with them when they are climbing uphill towards achievement, just like the half clutch. When there is a ‘traffic jam’ in their lives we must learn to become the silent traffic cop, directing them out of the jam… and when we cannot agree with them and their opinions, we must learn to ‘parallel park’ our views with theirs-agree to disagree?

To be a good driver, one is also particular enough to choose a ‘good’ driving school. What school do we go to, to become ‘good’ parents then? Oh that’s right; we don’t, because our school for that is our own parents. So very often we try to apply the same “because I say so” attitude to a generation of children that has google giving them all the answers, unlike yester years when parents had all the answers. And then we make the gross mistake of ‘demanding’ respect from them instead of earning it. Well…google earned its respect from them. And why not? It upgrades itself every minute perhaps to make itself more ‘user-friendly’ with its applications, functions and options and takes into account the needs of its customer. How much do we upgrade ourselves to become ‘child-friendly’ then? No wonder as adults we are often faced with situations where we cannot give a rational answer to a very valid and rational question from a child. And the laziest and most pathetic approach to such a situation is that very “because I say so” answer.

I am not implying here that they should be given all the freedom in the world-but most of it, yes. And this will almost sound like a threat to many of us isn’t it? Because what then is our significance in their lives if we cannot scold them (for no valid reason) and assert our presence on them as parents in a hierarchical sense? (The problem does not lie in giving freedom, the problem lies in giving freedom without imparting the skill sets for responsibility & accountability to handle that freedom). Dictatorship and authoritarianism as schools of thought come from one’s insecurity about ‘control’ over others while democracy comes from investing ‘trust’ in others. Giving freedom comes from a ‘secure place’ and not from an ‘insecure place’. If we worry about whether to give children freedom, it just means that we do not trust our own database of knowledge and values and our process of ‘knowledge/value transfer’ to them. How then are we capable of becoming parents? It’s like a salesman selling a product that he doesn’t believe in.

Coming to the word ‘license’ as I’m sure many will find the idea of licensing parenting as harsh or ridiculous. Before I put forth my point, let me state here that 192 countries over the world (including India) have ratified a UN Convention on the Rights of the Child. I work with kids and I get to see the results of ‘inappropriate parenting’ before my eyes very often (was that politically correct enough?). Now, speaking for India, some of us dismiss the RTO’s authority to give us a license and drive without a license anyway and well…some of us learn driving skills and then appear for the exam until we qualify for a license (no prizes for guessing that the latter would make good value transfer).

What I’m trying to hint at, is that we drive ourselves to undergo ‘change’ in order to qualify for that license, which involves the learning and unlearning of a lot of habits, attitudes and perspectives. So if parenting had a license, wouldn't we be positively driven to improve upon ourselves and manage to achieve something that eludes most humanity- change? and that too, through the most natural human instinct (wanting to become a parent) as the basis for our motivation?ek teer se do nishaan?

The problem with this idea, apart from the fact that most humans do not want to change, is that we can never accept an external figure to decide something so personal for us-whether or not we qualify to become parents?Who will decide? I mean… we are OK with all the marketing wizards influencing our children (more than ourselves) with advertisements of their brands splashed across buildings, buses and shopping carts, influencing their choices, their education and hence their market value in future but how can we give someone else the power to tell us that ‘you need to change to become a good parent’? You must be joking! We choose to have all the sense of individual identity as per our convenience then, don’t we?

If a driving instructor teaches you bad driving, you could crash someday and lose your life. No individual has the right to devalue another’s life. Parents are the instructors who equip us with the skills required to drive the car of life. There may soon come a time when humans may really have to stop breeding… (Have you seen the plight of the earth? and I think the earlier the better), but if we really must breed...and cannot control our incessant obsessive need to pass on our identities (which makes me wonder how weak our identities are) …then why not breed with some integrity and value-creation? Is that not reason enough for us to look at parenting as a separate entity from reproducing and give it its due respect?

April 30th, 2011, 9:25 PM

Pune, India

Child Participation, the much needed step.

In the words of Verhellen, “the usual adult-centric construct of the child has been questioned”. Verhellen believes that the perception towards children is now changing. They are no more seen as objects, but as subjects, that also possess human rights just like all other adult human beings. In the articles 12 to 16, the United Nations Convention on the rights of the Child, talks about the right to express an opinion, freedom of expression, freedom of thought, conscience and religion, freedom of association, protection of privacy. When the CRC is ratified by any country, it becomes the obligation of schools to carry out three main tasks: the right to education; rights in education; and rights through education (Verhellen, 1993). These tasks would have important and serious effects on the school ethos. What is stated in the articles 12 to 16 implies human rights in education. Teaching human rights and making children aware about them cannot be achieved only through theoretical lessons in the class. Infact they are of no use if they are not put into practice.

The school is the one place where the children get their initial peer interaction. This is where they build up their personality and learn about human values by interacting with their friends and peer group. There are numerous situations that a child faces in school and how he would react to these situations depends upon the value-system he has created for himself. For example, in one study made in two inner city schools, it was observed that students showed with their support for other disabled children, how only they can make “inclusion work”. (Alderson, P and Goodey C, 1998)

A head teacher who has been dealing with issues of participation has rightly pointed out the importance of child participation, to which I agree wholeheartedly. The opinion, that if we want young people to learn how to improve the quality of their lives, we must let them practice, comes across as a common argument until the reasoning of this opinion becomes clear. The reasoning that letting students practice would allow them to make mistakes and in turn lead them to coping with their mistakes, is an important element in participation because learning from mistakes is equivalent to learning from one’s own experience. And self-experience is a well-acclaimed teacher for all. (Cunningham, J)

Some of the reasons why children themselves feel that they need to be involved and that they need to participate is because it gives a chance to:

1. practice active citizenship
2. boost their confidence
3. develop their communication skills
4. create positive relations with teachers and other staff.

(www.nya.org.uk/hearbyright)

School councils are a big step towards children’s participation. These councils comprise of elected student members and representatives, who put their views before the school. There are a number of reasons why schools now want to have school councils.

1. Responsibility for the norms and values of the school enables children to cooperate more with the functioning of the school and try and stop unwanted behavior or behavior going against the ethos of the school.
2. The teachers will never know the ‘inside story’ when it comes to children. There are a number of issues within children that need to be addressed, and which can be done through student representatives. Like issues about discipline, codes of conduct, staff-pupil relations, extra-curricular activities, etc.
3. Learning to speak on issues concerning their daily lives can teach pupils about the workings of democratic or consultative structures. They learn transferable skills necessary for their future professional life, like conducting debates, taking minutes, framing proposals, establishing committees, etc.
4. Financing and resources is another important aspect of school functioning. When student councils get involved, they learn how to prioritize activities they are demanding from the school as they get a clear picture of the school’s finances.
5. In his research on school effectiveness Rutter (1979) it became clear that schools that encouraged more active participation had better exam results, better behaviour, attendance and less delinquency.

As Patrick, J.J (1999) says, “If there is a government of the people, by the people and for the people, then there must be education of the principles, practices and commitments of democracy.” In a democracy, no government is considered as perfect and the way it operates, its ideology and its decisions are always questionable. If the government itself can be questioned, then in a democratic school, the children definitely have the rights to question decisions being made about their lives.

Gerzon (1997) states that, “to learn democracy, students must do democracy. The skills associated with social and civic participation encourage children to take an active and informed role in society.” Students should be able to become good listeners and react appropriately to the views of others.

Albert Shanker (1998, 5) believes that if we want our children to believe in democracy and preserve it for generations to come, then we must introduce them to the practices and cultures of democracy.

In reference to this now, I am questioning myself, where India primarily stands,being a nation that has ratified the United Nations Convention on the rights of the child in 1992. How often did we practice our rights as children when we were in school. Or rather, were we given opportunities to practice those rights? Did we have any awareness of an existing platform given to us called the UN CRC? Why are most parts of India unaware of the CRC whereas in some parts of India, such beautiful and effective use of the CRC was made, that it led to reforming the structural implications of the Panchayats' policies for the children. It’s time we start thinking about the position of Child Rights and Child participation in our Education system and follow it up with the necessary action required.

December, 2008

11:15 pm, Leeds