Monday, Feb 18 2002
Teaching Our Children The Art Of Relating In A Relationship
- By- Khurshid Khoree"NOW at 53, when I look back at my life and its varied roles, starting from a student to a working girl, a wife to a mother, a seamstress to an entrepreneur, a writer, a counselor/psychotherapist to being a better human being, crisscrossed with invaluable lessons.
All the learning's and experiences I picked up as I moved on from one stage to another has left me with a feeling of warmth and satisfaction. And the road to success was possible with all its pitfalls and achievements only due to an abundant storage of positive energy and creativity laced with humor, which helped me to move on through the journey of my life so far.
What I strongly believe in: live one day at a time; make the best use of an opportunity; believe in yourself, be honest and sincere, and give your best to the job in hand."
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Having a satisfying relationship in our lives is the main goal for everyone. We are all looking to be loved and to love someone, and hope that it is the best we can find - true, fulfilling and lasting.
Relationship in the form of friendship or love brings either happiness or pain, for very often it comes fleetingly, leaving us with a deep sense of dissatisfaction, disappointment and bitterness.
We are sometimes so desperate to hold on to a relationship, even a bad one, that we will do anything in our power to stay within it, however painful, unsatisfactory or boring it may have proved to be. And the basis reason for this repeated and unhappy state is because we seldom learn how to relate to others, we only learn how to be in a relationship.
A successful and a happy relationship, of course, is what we all long for, and those of us
who have achieved such a relationship have nothing to worry about. But when possessiveness, jealousy, domination, suspicion, doubt and discrimination enter our relationship, this will not be love but ugliness and this ugliness will eventually influence our children's ability in relating with others.
Relating to people is an art which, when learned by a child early in life, will provide that child with wisdom to know when a relationship is good and lasting and when it is not. In learning through childhood into adulthood, the art of relating will bring the child to an understanding within a relationship which will provide so much more generosity of spirit, patience with the other, that any relationship entered will have the very best chance of success. But, equally important, the adult will not be afraid to leave if a relationship is not working out.
A bad relationship is like a prison. Stifling and difficult, it leaves you with a feeling of being trapped. A good relationship contains friendship as well as love and passion and feels unique. Friendship is the key to relating, for friendship is probably one of the highest forms of love, alongside perhaps pure mother's love, but then mother's love also contains friendship if it is devoid of any possessiveness.
Along with friendship, relating successfully means - being honest, understanding each others feelings, having a caring attitude, being empathetic, open communication, and most important of all genuinely listen when spoken to. All the above qualities help in bonding a good relationship.
We spend so much of our time believing that people we relate and connect with are going to hurt, hate, talk about, and put us down. It rarely occurs to us that they are thinking the same about us - indeed perhaps even more than we are. It is fear that prevents us from relating with one another.
And often, while relating with others, we forget all of these important qualities, instead we experience fear leading to insecurity. This insecurity carries through to the fear of death, in the form of the end of the relationship.
We speak of a relationship being "forever" - "I will always love you, and never leave you." Such promises turn sour and leave us bitter and unwilling to embark on a new relationship for fear that it will happen again. Letting go of fear is one the most amazing human experience, for it creates a rush of freedom which can only be understood by doing it. There is no intellectual method of making it felt.
In effect, letting go of fear is accepting death - accepting that, come what may, we are willing to surrender to life and this brings, even if only momentarily, the greatest joy. It can also remain with us as a lasting and life-time change.
A child needs to learn how to relate to people, all people, and this means knowing how to deal with difficult people as well as easy people. The art consists of learning clarity of vision not judgment, for judgment is merely another form of fear. Adults have a habit of passing on Rash Judgments about how stupid and bad and ignorant or beautiful and smart and good the rest of the world is. This is not clarity.
Children watch everything we do and given enough rash judgments they will adopt them as gospel truth. To help children in teaching them the correct method of relating, we as adults have to first set an example for them to follow. As parents, what we role model to our children is what that is learnt ultimately.
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