Tuesday, March 1, 2016

Take your life back!

Scenario 1:
The landline rings. Mother picks up the call. The grandfather on the other side of the call wants to talk to his grandchild.
The 6 year old kid says...I am busy. I will talk to you later. May be over the ‘weekend’.

Scenario 2:
A 5 year old kid pretends to type on a laptop, has plugged in ear phones. An mused Father asks the kiddo what are you doing?
Kids response: I am on a conference call. Kindly do not disturb.

Scenario 3:
An 8 year old kid plays with few trophies & medals. He is very happy hanging around with those. Finally looks at the Father & almost speaks in an announcing manner...I don’t think so you will ever get a medal for being a Best Father & does a thumbs down.

Scenario 4: The child gives a preface that he was enjoying coffee with his parents at Starbucks. The scene that gets depicted is as follows. Child busy looking here & there, kind of liking the coffee. Father on a call. Mother busy coaxing a child to click a selfie & then posting it on Facebook with a title “Time well spent with my kid”

Scenario 5: The child is studying. Mother is on whatsapp & keeps telling the child in between..sit properly...study well...

And it was followed by many such scenarios. A theatre based workshop with students of age 5 to 13 years brought out few facts where parents and teachers several times felt like laughing & crying at the same time.

Few questions that facilitated a discussion with parents:

1.       Are we living a weekend life? How can we improve it?
2.       How can we wisely & thoughtfully integrate household chores (that takes a lot of our time on weekends) with kids?
3.       Can we unplug at least social media & whatsapp over the weekends and also while spending time with kids?
4.       Introspect – Do we walk the talk?
5.       If we don’t log in into the office network over the weekend, is it so difficult to catch up on Monday?
6.       Is the work really urgent or have you got into a habit/behaviour to bolster your self-worth with proof of 24/7 availability?

So is it a time for you to take your life back? Your laptop & smartphone also needs some idle time while you live & enjoy your life!