There is a lot of material on kids, parenting and so on. Why I Know It MOM ?
During my past 2 decades of career, I noticed few things. Wherever I succeeded or failed, there were patterns.
- I do not like to talk much. I was taught that action is better than words. But I thought- speaking itself is bad. It made me hold back from being active in discussions.
- I hesitate to negotiate. I always feel that asking something for myself is not good.
- I am terrible with managing money, negotiating salary, investing and so on. Somehow, I do not like seeing myself as rich.
There are more.
With lot of effort, some of the weaknesses can be improved. I have done lot of work on myself. The impact of some of the issues are reduced now. But it can not away. Here is why:
Most of these limitations I can trace back to my forming years. i.e. childhood. Not just for me – with hundreds of people I met at work too have same problem.
But what do we teach children now a days when they are very young?
- English alphabets – all kinds.
- Lot more knowledge subjects.
Many of us are too busy working and hence can not take care of kids. Grandparents are busy with TV too.
And we have day cares, domestic helps and babysitters. Thanks to ‘mirror neurons’ child is going to mirror the baby sitters and housemaids. And the TV shows. Are we emotionally available when the child needs the most ?
How is this affecting the emotional health and ability to succeed few years down the line?
The times for kids have changed for the worse. For parents too apart from the old problems, the new ones have appeared.
- Attractive advertisements which sell poison as nectar.
- Extreme level of exposure of sex, violence and consumerism. Poor kids has no scope for childhood now.
- Too much of peer pressure right from very young age. The age of innocence is gone.
And there are more.
The emotional well being in childhood decides the career, relationships, happiness and everything else. Though people complain about politics, the main driver of better career is how well we spend the childhood.
After the long journey, here I am …realizing this:
- I wish I had better way of interpreting my childhood incidents. This would have shaped my responses to situations much better.
- I wish I could have had better emotional skills and self management taught in simple stories in the childhood. It would have remained with me. I have done part of this after growing up. But having these skills early would have helped much more.
- All comic books and cartoons were fun. But they built in strong stereotypes of heros, villains, problem solving through fighting and many more. I wish I had something that deals with real world issues and the approach to deal with these.
This is where I Know It MOM comes in. It helps to interpret day to day life situations and deal with them in right way. In today’s world, kids go through very different life situations than they used, in the past. Worse – parents are not around all the time to interpret it for them.
Want to know more ? check this out http://www.iknowitmom.com.
About Me –
I have spent nearly two exciting decades in software industry in several domains – industrial automation, networking, smart buildings, energy, automotive and so on. I have held all kinds of responsibilities various shades of technical and management roles.
I have done well generally. Traveled around the world. Worked with many kinds of people and cultures. Had enough highs and lows. I am thankful that many senior professionals across the world have shaped me.
http://in.linkedin.com/in/ishwarabhat
