When my son taught me, what is out of the box thinking?

As a child, my son would not talk a lot; he would constantly be thinking or listening, or more I can say crying. He was born preterm. I dislike the word premature. I always feel babies mature in their own way and when they are born preterm they mature much faster since they are subjected to hardships much earlier in their lives unlike the other normal born ones.

I am a Konkani, married to a Maharashtrian, post my delivery we moved to Hyderabad for work so at a very tender age my child was exposed to multiple languages. I would interact with him in Konkani,my husband in Marathi, the landlady where we stayed spoke with him in Telugu and my colleagues and neighbours either in Hindi or English. Probably, this was the reason why my son went mute till about 18 months and then he started to respond in the same language the other person would talk to him. But he was still slow to speak or rather chose not to speak.

My interactions with him during those days were very enlightening and entertaining.

During his pre-primary school PTM (Parent Teacher Meeting), I saw all his classmates talking, especially the girls, all animated and excited and expressing themselves freely. I saw a girl speaking very clearly her name and age.

“My name is Aahna, and I am 2 years old”. And there was my son who had to be coaxed to speak,but then I was not going to give up. So I kept on teaching him,” If someone asks you how old are you?” You should say,” I am 2 years old”. After about 20 minutes, my son turned around and pointed out to his “2 ears” and asked, “mamma, 2 ears?” That is when I realised my son was not the one to do rote learning, he was the one who would learn from observations and experience and I would have to be patient.

As he grew old, we as parents learnt new ways of thinking from him. Once I asked him, who is the tallest person in your class? He was quick to say, “Swaroopa Maam”. That’s when I realised how important it is to be very precise and clear in your question, since his interpretation of my question was very innocent and clear.

My son's innocence was always an eye opener for me and I realised that we as parents and adults subject these kids to immense pressure. Once he was asked in his school what he would like to be when he grows up. After listening to this question my son ended up crying the whole day at school.Once he got home, I received a call from his school coordinator explaining me the situation. I told her I will try to reason out with him, but it is very difficult to understand what a 3 and half year old child would cry for. Nevertheless, I and my husband decided to discuss with him. It was a normal practice that I had started at home that every evening once we were all back home from work and school respectively we would sit together and share our daily experience. The 3 year old understood this and always contributed with his poems and stories from school. But today, was a special day, he did not share anything but kept quiet. After me and my husband finished our stories for the day we asked him about his day. He said, “I cried”. When asked why? He said,” I was scared”. I asked him as to why he was scared? To this he replied, “I was asked, what will I become when I grow up?” My husband said, “Yes, so what is there to be scared about?” To our surprise he said, “Why should I become something, I want to remain Vyom (his name is Vyom), why will I change when I grow up?” 

Vyom managed to give us a life lesson. We never change and we should not change. We remain the same even when we grow up. We just evolve. At that point I could understand his insecurity and scare, we explained to him that he would remain the same and it’s just what is it that he would like to do when he grows up, was the question that his teacher had asked. 

After a lot of thinking and a silence Vyom said “FATHER”.