An Act with no Regrets!

We have all grown up listening, reading Fairy Tales and associating ourselves with the good fairies and bad ones too.. entwined with the wolves and the woodcutters... the forests and the castles... the gremlins and magic potions...the darkness and the light...

What attracts us to these everlasting traditional Fairy tales that are passed on from generations.... is the predictive endings and sequence of events... The “Happily every after..” line which we all wish and would like to imagine our lives to be..

Another important message amidst all the witches and dragons is the Kindness or Empathy oozing out of these stories which keeps our belief in the good things, binding us to these stories on a stormy night huddled in a cosy bed!

Kindness & Empathy together is being friendly, considerate & the ability to understand feelings or being aware of other people‘emotions.

They aren’t a virtue we are born with but learnt through our families, teachers, friends ...further developed or acquired by our daily interactions, associations and observations of our surroundings.

(PS: Do grab a copy of ‘The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse‘ by Charle Mackesy .. an interesting read for all generations)

While observing a child building a high tower with relentless focus and explain every detail of her structure I accidentally knocked down the main part of her building. I apologised to while collecting the pieces frantically and all she did was, ‘Smile’, put a hand on my shoulder and said ‘Don’t worry, I can make it again’!

I paused and could not believe a 3 year old to be aware of my feelings which she may have guessed by my actions.This unusual response had me captivated and got me thinking how to impart this important characteristic within our children....

Listen : Listening to our children and validating their different kind of emotions gives them a sense of security and judgement of their own actions.

Talk: Often we try to shield our children and don’t talk about our own feelings or inabilities, but accepting our own failures or disappointments can only make them realise that its okay to talk about ‘how’ one is feeling.

Coping Mechanisms: Once we have listened and spoken about how we are feeling, it’s now time to devise coping mechanisms. There are no set rules of devising these mechanisms and as every child is unique so will these mechanisms be.. uniquely developed for every child which we as adults can develop and facilitate by active discussions with the child in the moment.

By having open and active discussions, children feel they are in control of the situation, building a sense of responsibility to empathise with different situations / emotions, recognising various emotions, think of alternatives to behaviours / reactions... further leading them to believe that an act of kindness doesn’t go unrecognised and being Empathetic can only elevate them to a Joyful state!

Just like most of our main characters of our Fairy Tales, a very internally happy and contented person will have the capacity to forgive and give away kindness, one who is higher above the grasp of materialistic possessions or personal ambitions and moving towards developing meaningful human connections. 

Learning to deal with emotions and Being Kind will create a being who is ‘Happy’, ‘Content’ and empowered with ‘Inner Strength’ as Happiness or Kindness needs no colour, shape, size or quantity, after all the Real kind of kindness comes from within YOU!

By Anu Raina