KIDS DON'T LEARN FROM PEOPLE THEY DON'T LIKE

 




“The greatest thing in the world is to know

how to belong to oneself.”

Michel de Montaigne

 

A hundred things shape our self-esteem. Almost all of them do it when we are small, helpless.

So, today, when I am 65, or when you are 15 or 80, each of us has come here affected by our childhood events… Many pleasant ones, many unpleasant… Many empowering ones, many damaging. Yes, there is this load of our baggage in each one of us…

Needless to say, the pleasant and empowering things have manifested into our high self-esteem. The unpleasant and damaging ones have manifested into our low self-esteem. But, no one is free from this bondage – what happened to us in our childhood, when we were helpless.

So, why I behave the way I do now, certainly, has its roots in what happened to me, and around me, when I was small… Why I am fun-loving or dead-serious, why I am an extrovert or an introvert, why trust comes easily to me or why it doesn’t come so easily, why I laugh like a riot or cry like a crybaby… why certain kinds of films, songs and people I love or detest – yes, all of these dates back to my childhood days…

So, all this said, read and understood, now what? Is there something I can do when I see the link between my past and the present, or is it something I cannot do anything about… my ill-fate?





As a teacher, I get to experience this phenomenon almost every day… I haven’t forgotten my school and college days… the days of my nervousness and poor self-esteem come vividly before me when I lose patience with my own young students, now… When I scold them or put pressure on them – when they make more mistakes and even go blank – yes, that’s the time, I realize the truth, that they have come here with their baggage of unpleasant past; that, it is time to go easy on them… Help release them from their load…

Some days ago, when I was losing my patience while a young girl was making repeated ‘silly mistakes’ – sounding ‘dumb’ – I reminded myself to go slow and go easy on her… I stopped teaching the ‘text-book syllabus’ and started telling my own story: How poor my own self-esteem was at her age, and how, through awareness and taking responsibility for my own development, I started working on it… I explained, “I had to accept the fact, that I was unable to undo my past… Blaming others and indulging in self-pity was never going to help me… I had to not only be kind to others, but also to my own self… The first and crucial step towards building our self-esteem is to take responsibility to do it. That’s self-help.”

After the class, the girl stayed back to narrate the situation at her place… The frequent fights between her parents had left her feel scared, helpless, and even hopeless. The young girl needed someone to go easy on her, and not rough… There was enough of roughness in her life… A new syllabus had to be taught, and in a new way.





Our impatience, intolerance, strong words – yes, these are the results of our ‘memory loss’… We forget how deeply – and how lonely – we, too, wished, once, our teachers and authorities went slow and soft on us…

Love is patient… Love understands.

 

GERALD D’CUNHA

 

Pic.: Pixabay 1. N-region 2. ottawagraphics

 

Video: TED/Rita Pierson

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