Does your parenting style fetch good?

One young man went to apply for a managerial position in a big company. He passed the initial interview, and now would meet the director for the final interview.

The director discovered from his CV that the youth's academic achievements were excellent. He asked, "Did you obtain any scholarships in school?" the youth answered "no".

" Was it your father who paid for your school fees?"

"My father passed away when I was one year old, it was my mother who paid for my school fees.” he replied.

" Where did your mother work?"

"My mother worked as clothes cleaner.”

The director requested the youth to show his hands. The youth showed a pair of hands that were smooth and perfect.

" Have you ever helped your mother wash the clothes before?"

"Never, my mother always wanted me to study and read more books. Besides, my mother can wash clothes faster than me.

The director said, "I have a request. When you go home today, go and clean your mother's hands, and then see me tomorrow morning.

The youth felt that his chance of landing the job was high. When he went back home, he asked his mother to let him clean her hands. His mother felt strange, happy but with mixed feelings, she showed her hands to her son.

The youth cleaned his mother's hands slowly. His tear fell as he did that. It was the first time he noticed that his mother's hands were so wrinkled, and there were so many bruises in her hands. Some bruises were so painful that his mother winced when he touched it.

This was the first time the youth realized that it was this pair of hands that washed the clothes everyday to enable him to pay the school fees. The bruises in the mother's hands were the price that the mother had to pay for his education, his school activities and his future.

After cleaning his mother hands, the youth quietly washed all the remaining clothes for his mother.

That night, mother and son talked for a very long time.

Next morning, the youth went to the director's office.

The Director noticed the tears in the youth's eyes, when he asked: "Can you tell me what have you done and learned yesterday in your house?"

The youth answered," I cleaned my mother's hand, and also finished cleaning all the remaining clothes'

“I know now what appreciation is. Without my mother, I would not be who I am today. By helping my mother, only now do I realize how difficult and tough it is to get something done on your own. And I have come to appreciate the importance and value of helping one’s family.

The director said, "This is what I am looking for in a manager. I want to recruit a person who can appreciate the help of others, a person who knows the sufferings of others to get things done, and a person who would not put money as his only goal in life.”

“You are hired.”

This young person worked very hard, and received the respect of his subordinates. Every employee worked diligently and worked as a team. The company's performance improved tremendously.

A child, who has been protected and habitually given whatever he wanted, would develop an "entitlement mentality" and would always put himself first. He would be ignorant of his parent's efforts. When he starts work, he assumes that every person must listen to him, and when he becomes a manager, he would never know the sufferings of his employees and would always blame others. For this kind of people, who may be good academically, they may be successful for a while, but eventually they would not feel a sense of achievement. They will grumble and be full of hatred and fight for more. If we are this kind of protective parents, are we really showing love or are we destroying our children instead?

                                       
You can let your child live in a big house, eat a good meal, learn piano, watch on a big screen TV. But when you are cutting grass, please let them experience it. After a meal, let them wash their plates and bowls together with their brothers and sisters. It is not because you do not have money to hire a maid, but it is because you want to love them in a right way. You want them to understand, no matter how rich their parents are, one day their hair will grow gray, same as the mother of that young person. The most important thing is your child learns how to appreciate the effort and experience the difficulty and learns the ability to work with others to get things done.

We have been talking it all wrong!

Words are so powerful. Words make a person to go on top of the world or dig deep down. 
Using proper language is not simply being "politically correct." There are reasons to avoid using certain terms.

Let's learn our language.

Etiquettes of disability language:

What is people's first language?

People's first language describes what the person "HAS" and not what the person "IS". People's first language puts the person before disability. We should always say a person with disability rather than a disabled person. It is better to avoid using words and phrases that evoke pity or fear, or that have negative connotation. For eg., words like abnormal, burden, deformed, invalid and so on.

SAY	INSTEAD OF
People with disabilities	Handicapped person
Cognitive disability	Mental retardation
She has Autism	She is autistic
She has learning disability	She is learning disabled
He has physical disability	She is crippled
He/ she receives special education services	He/ she is in special education class
Congenital disability	Birth defect
She needs or uses wheel chair	She is in wheel chair

An individual with disability is a human being. It’s as simple as that.

Treat adults as adults: Treat everyone the way you’d want people to treat you.

Don't assume that person with disability in public place needs your help. Offer assistance but wait until it is accepted. Listen to the instructions given by that person. Here are some tips:

• Always ask first.
•  Understand the clarified assistance.
•  Realize that different people have different preferences.
• Some people don’t want or need help… accept “no” to your offer. 

Some Common Courtesies:

• If the disability is not even Germane to the conversation, don't even mention it.
• Remember, person with disability is not sick or unhealthy.
• A wheel chair is a part of one's personal body space. Laughing or leaning on it is rude and annoying.
• When speaking to a person who uses wheel chair for more than few minutes, place yourself at eye level with that person. (It also applies to people with visual impairment)

• When speaking to a person with disability, speak to  that  person and not to the companion. Similarly for people who use sign language, speak to them rather than the interpreter.
• Share the same social courtesy with everyone.
• Don't ask a person using wheel chair to hold things for you. Respect their personal space.
• If a person with visual impairment needs to be guided, offer your arm and don't take his/ her arm.
• Do not cover your face when communicating with a person who is hard of hearing.
• If you find trouble understanding a person with speech impairment, ask him/ her to repeat.
• Be aware of the language used like stupid, moron, lazy when working with students/ adults with learning disability.
• Acknowledge the difficulty of social distance and clumsiness when working with students/ adults with learning disability.                                                                                                                            

Remember always "DISABILITY IS NATURAL".

Make a mistake? Apologize, correct the error, learn, and move on.

RELAX! It is okay to say to a person who is blind, “I’ll see you later,” or ask a person in a wheelchair to go for a walk. It’s part of our everyday language and not always taken literally.