Counsellor Ragini Rao conducts the parenting workshop. Picture by Sanjoy Chattopadhyaya

Heaping love on kids and being their role model is what makes good parents, according to Ragini Rao, who conducted the ‘Parenting with Love’ workshop at Crossword bookstore last week. The two-day interactive session, targeted at guardians of two to 12-year-olds, attracted a handful of young mothers eager for insights on how best to handle their cherubs and build their personalities.

A behavioural counsellor and certified transactional analyst (psychotherapy), Ragini Rao has conducted several such workshops at Bangalore, her home for over nine years. Now a counsellor at the Apollo clinic in Calcutta and a volunteer at Mentaid, she wants to share her experience with parents in the city.

“These are difficult times; there is too much competition and too many distractions for children. Parents need special skills and they need to seriously reflect on what they are passing on to the next generation. Even two and three-year-olds can now talk confidently on any subject. On the flip side, there is a lot of aggressiveness, insensitivity and lack of discipline. These must be checked on time,” Rao told Metro.

And till what age is it possible to make behavioural changes? “It is never too late, one can admit one’s faults, make changes and move on even at 40,” she asserted.
Calcutta, the counsellor felt, is lucky to still have joint families, unlike Bangalore, but “then the family bond is still strong all over India, so even where people don’t stay together they come together during a crisis”.

Through charts, group exercises and discussions, Rao acquainted the mothers with the “nurture and structure” aspects of parenting — nurture being mental stimulation, recognition and unconditional affection, while structure is the set of rules for children.
“It is okay for you to tie the shoelaces of a two or three-year-old but for a four or five-year-old, you should ask if they need any help,” advised Rao. While abuse or rigidity can demean or suffocate a child, he or she might be confused if the parents set absolutely no rules, said the expert.

Rao suggested ways to address behavioural problems of children narrated by participants, from throwing tantrums to refusing to share toys with friends. The sessions continued beyond the time limit and quite a few visitors to the store showed an interest.