RamG Vallath - Active Parenting: How to Raise Your Child to Be Positive

To

S. Balakrishna Menon and Radha Menon

(Achan and Amma)

The two reasons that I am,

and that I am what I am.

CONTENTS

W ATCHING ACHAN, my father, lie in his bed in the ICU was one of the toughest moments of my life. His mitral valve, which had been replaced through an open-heart surgery a dozen years ago, had gotten infected and he had to undergo an emergency operation to replace it again. The operation was successful, but the infection had spread and he was fighting to stay alive.

As I looked down upon him, a flood of emotions washed over me. Here was my hero, the person from whom I had inherited my remarkably positive and never-say-die attitude, the person who had guided me every step of the way by role modelling values that made me what I am. My heart was bursting as I looked down at him helplessly.

I gently took his hand in mine, my entire being focused on transferring vital life energy to him. Above all, I wanted to stoke his will to live. I wanted to say something to make him passionately want to live. Then it struck me. I would motivate him with his own words.

After completing BTech in electronics and MBA from reputed institutes, I had had a highly successful career. However, it was derailed at a young age by a crippling autoimmune disorder. In a matter of seven years, I had gone from being the youngest telecom COO in the country at thirty-four to a physical wreck who couldnt button his own shirt, hold a glass of water or stand without support. But the attitude and the values my parents inculcated in me ensured that I never gave up. I found a cure for the incurable disorder halfway across the world, then went about rebuilding each muscle in my arms and legs that had wasted away. And as my body mended, I reinvented my life as a bestselling author and motivational speaker. Over the next five years, I had delivered over a hundred talksin companies, colleges and schoolsspreading my message of positivity on how to convert every hurdle into a stepping stone for success. My story got published in many newspapers and I was interviewed on multiple radio channels. My journey became a chapter in an eighth grade CBSE textbook. I also dedicated a big part of my life to helping others with similar disorders, and to bring cutting-edge treatment into India at about a tenth of the cost. Achan had watched my phoenix-like resurrection with admiration. He would often tell me, Your speeches and writing are like Lord Ramas arrows. In the quiver there is just one, but it multiplies to ten on the bowstring, hundred in flight and by the time it hits the mark a single arrow has transformed into a thousand. Like that, you touch thousands in your audience and inspire them. Each of them, in turn, will touch hundreds more with your inspiring message and so on till your message reverberates across the country touching millions of lives. These were the words I would now use to motivate himto fight to stay alive.

Dear Achan, I told him, I want you to get well fast, because I want to start a joint project with you. You see, I want to send out one more arrow. I want us to write a book togetherone about parenting: on how to bring up children to be able to handle any situation with a positive, can-do attitude. You have taught me by example. Now let us write this book together.

I instantly knew I had moved him. The heart rate monitor registered a sudden spike in his heartbeat. My eyes welled up with tears. As I wiped them away and looked up, I realized my father had raised his arm with difficulty and his hand was hovering over my head, blessing me. That moment will be etched in my heart for as long as I live.

Each of us weave a unique thread in the grand tapestry of the universe. Some of those threads end with ones lifetime. But for some, the thread permeates those it touches with its unique hue, till it multiplies and spreads out, painting a picture that stretches way beyond their individual lifetime. As I write this book, I want to carry the thread that my father started, and imbued with his own unique colours, and multiply it a million-fold so that together we leave a wonderful and positive mark on this universe. This book is for the both of us and he is very much alive for me as I write this, guiding me, and, hopefully, will be immortalized through what I share here. That is what great parents dothey live on for centuries after their physical selves depart, through the thoughts and values that they have bequeathed to their children. Their influence is boundless across generations.

I WANT TO CREATE a recipe for great parenting, I told one of the mothers I was interviewing for this book. She looked at me, trying not to be disrespectful, but her eyes clearly conveying, You idiot, how can there be one recipe when the ingredients can be as different as jaggery and cheese? She politely went on to say that maybe recipe wasnt the right term to use. She, or rather her unspoken thought, was right, of course. A recipe assumes standard ingredients that need to be processed in a standard way. With parenting, there is no standard ingredient. Each child is unique and can vary from one extreme to the other on so many different levels. What I can do is share a broad guideline on the strategies and techniques that are most likely to help mould a child towards a set of possible attributes as an adult. Just like in cooking there are guidelines such as do not put excess salt or if you want the water to boil faster, keep the lid on or overcooking can spoil the flavour, which are generally applicable to all recipes irrespective of the ingredients, in parenting too, these guidelines can be designed to be applicable to most children.

Initially, what I set out to do was exactly what I said in the prologue. Share the strategies and techniques employed by my parents that directly led to my possessing the traits that, in turn, led to me becoming extraordinarily resilient and happy even in the face of extraordinary difficulties. Please note I am not bragging. I have addressed hundreds of thousands of students and professionals on how to build those traits and written a book that became a bestseller. But as I started writing the narrative for this book, I realized that trying to create a broad set of guidelines that can work on most children will require more than just one persons experience, however relevant it is. Thus, what started as a simple recounting of my story became a mammoth exercise that took about two years of extensive research and upskilling.

In these two years, I interviewed dozens of parents to understand their challenges, the questions they faced, what worked for them, what didnt, and what kind of an adult they want their child to become. I also met some incredibly successful peopleby the commonly used yardsticks of success. I am lucky that I have a huge network to draw from, because of the following reasons. I studied in IIT and XLRI and have friends who are highly successful in the corporate world and the engineering field. I spent twenty years as a corporate professional, about ten of them at CXO levels. Today I am the co-founder of an engineering start-up, and this brings me in touch with other start-up founders, venture capitalists, partners of private equity funds and a bunch of great engineers. I also worked and currently consult in the school education sector part-time, bringing out a great science magazine as chief editor, which puts me in touch with renowned scientists, motivated teachers and other educators. I am a patient with multiple disorders and have gone through some cutting-edge clinicals trials, and I am a part of multiple volunteer forums that put me in touch with great doctors and NGO workers as well as some incredibly brave patients. As a motivational speaker who has spoken in over fifty schools, I have personally met around 40,000 children. So, I am well networkedto put it modestly. Apart from interviewing these successful people, I have spent time researching child psychology and neurology, even enrolling for an online diploma in the former. As a coach, I have helped people navigate difficult situations. I am privy to their challenges and struggles and understand what behaviour leads to happiness and success and what doesnt. Most importantly, I am a person who reflects deeply and I put together and analyse all the information I get from all these diverse experiences.