Parents today are more careful about their children, than ever before. Ever ready to do their best for welfare of their ward, parents don’t take kindly to failure of their children. They loose their cool and feel slighted at a personal level. Whereas infact they should keep their equipoise in such situations. By so doing they would be encouraging their kids on way to success and prosperity.
Sting of failure
We get to see guardians blowing their own trumpet, saying, ‘Our son will become a pilot’, ‘We will make our Minky a Medical Doctor’, or ‘Our daughter will make it to Air Hostess’. So to say, parents dream with their eyes wide open, and push themselves to limits for realisation of these dreams. Yet, at the end of all running about, recommendations, spending money, and nurturing high hopes, their children come home down and out.
When mental physical and financial resources of parent don’t promise success to their wards—it is natural for guardians to be crest fallen and feel cheated. So in fits of desperation, they, start beating their children, and calling them names, right in the school campus itself. Children with poor report card are even denied food for the day. Some parents revile their failed wards far into future. This is highly unbecoming of them. They should on the contrary, be more cautious about their conduct and behaviour when their ward are passing through the fire of trials and tribulations. Their lackadaisical attitude, or bad behaviour in such times, will dent infant psyche once and for all.
Parents would do well to remember that failures never mean that children are lacking in merit or that they are incorrigible. Setback only indicates lack of focus in efforts and it is no big deal to make mends in this deficiency :
A famous Urdu couplet says it best.
“Only the best of rider
Fall from horses in the thick of battle.
Fall is surely not for them
Who walk on their knees.”
Obviously, only one who struggles, endeavours, and stakes his all in the battle of life, can have a chance of loosing—or winning.
After a short stint as a daily wager, as an assistant in a drama company, and then as a farrier, an intrepid youth picks up the job of a watchman. His peers on new job joked : ‘Having failed at so many places, how long will you stick to this assignment?’ And their words proved prophetic as the officer on duty sacked him saying he was incompetent for job. Yet the youth was undeterred. He made it to the post of a teacher in a school. During that period applications were invited for service in Armed Forces. Impressed by sincerity and hard work of young teacher, the Head Master wrote in his letter of recommendation, ‘Honest, hard working, and fearless.’ No wonder he made it to Army, and subsequently to politics. By the very dint of his political acumen, creative urge, public dealing, behaviour, honesty and application; this youth, named Woodro Wilson, rose to the rank of President of United States of America.
Teach them to accept failures
No doubt parents feel the pinch of their children’s failures, but as a matter of fact the worst hit by sorrow are the one who fails in first place, i.e. children themselves. Why only children, none likes failing in any given assignment. Hence, if we, as also the little ones, learn to take failure in our stride, it bolsters our self confidence. Responsibilities of guardians go up many a notches once their ward fails in an examination or contest. In such a scenario parents should act wise and treat their children sympathetically.
An intimate tete-a-tete and a touch of affection are enough to free children from prangs of desperation, disgust, and helplessness. Console them and encourage them citing example of sanguine struggles of great men and women world over. How they failed in the beginning and won in the end. As a matter of fact failures are a source of new inspiration, not despair.
Swet Marden has observed that branding a person unsuccessful on his very first setback is to be unjust to him. Thousands of men, like Abraham Lincoln, failed hundreds of times only to succeed in the end most spectacularly. Manliness lies in dogged determination even in face of defeat, and in the spirit to go whole hog even after being vanquished. Indeed if you can’t break a stone in one stroke, you can crush it by repeated blows.
Self analysis is crucial
Many a guardians force their will on juniors, and ensure that they are executed too. Many a parents want their child to opt for mathematics and become an engineer just to realise a dream they had for their own person but failed therein. Then we have a mother who failing to become a dancer herself puts anklets in feet of her daughter who has no taste for stage but loves reading science and technology. If children falter in a scenario like this, fault is not theirs. There is no wisdom in putting a square peg in round hole. Hence parents must introspect whether their hopes and aspirations in respect of their child are apt. Children must be allowed total freedom to choose studies and vocation of their own liking.
Rather than beating and scolding children, parents should sit down and analyse why their children failed. This is imperative if repetition of such failures is sought to be avoided. Paradoxically, ours is a society where people aren’t sad on account of their own blemish, rather, they are sad seeing others happy and successful. There are many in the list of our near and dear ones who would rejoice our fall from grace. They are our enemies even as on surface they seem like friends. Keep such people at a distance. If women from neighbourhood shed crocodile tears on your child’s failure, check them in their tracks. Tell them loud and clear to stop their wail of sympathy since you know for sure why your child couldn’t perform well.
Remember
❑ Labour never goes waste. Instant success isn’t desirable. Some endeavours take centuries to redeem, where some ideas materialise in no time. We should work hard with faith and determination for that alone can take us places.
❑ Pick up one idea. Mould your life around it. Stick to it in your thoughts, in your dreams. Let your mind, muscles, nerves and every single cell of your body bathe in the spirit of this idea. Keep erratic and irrelevant thoughts at bay. This is the way to success in life.
❑ Our tomorrow depends on our today. If you desire a bright future, take care what you do today. Today is foundation stone of tomorrow’s mansion of gold. Take stock of today, resurrect your today. Postpone scruples. Do today itself whatsoever is good.
❑ A man is not one, but ten-twenty.
So, look carefully and several times, if you must.
Victory or defeat is matter of destiny.
But don’t miss out on seeing,
Who holds the broken sword.