April 18th Session
We started our session with a very interesting topic SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION by Seema. Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, “a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. The phrase "six degrees of separation" is often used as a synonym for the idea of the "small world" phenomenon. Facebook is a very good example of it.It seems on an average 10% of our friend in our Facebook friends list will be mutual friends. We all had stories to support this idea.Seema told that one of the guy she knew very well turned out to be an old acquaintance of her best friend. Varsha has studied this topic in detail back in college and has done a project based on this topic. They picked any random person and worked to find out how many people they are connected by. She says that we are even connected to President Barack Obama by six people or less!!! Unbelievable, isn’t it? Gayathri remembered her story when she had been to Florida for a vacation and happened to meet a lovely Kannada couple. She said it was so nice to connect with someone of their mother tongue in a land so far far away from home (India)!!!Couple of years later a new guy joined in her husband’s office. Each time he passed by this new guy he felt like he has seen him before, only to realize later that it was the same guy they met in Florida. What a co-incidence!!!!Sneha had a similar experience with her next door neighbhour.They were a friendly couple. It was only when their mother in laws got friendly and started to discuss their origin had they realized that both the husbands were not only from the same village but also had studied in the same school and was of the same batch. Amazing!!!I had a very similar experience in LA where my next door neighbor’s brother in law turned out to be very good friend of my brother in law!!!!I also remembered my experience when I tracked down my 3rd grade friend which happened to be my life’s first best friend from Doha,Qatar.My family had been to Doha, Qatar when I was little. I did my half of 3rd grade and 4th grade there. I had a really wonderful friend, but I lost touch when I returned to India. I did not even know her last name or her phone number……..nothing……..even forgot her face……………only had a fond feeling when I thought of her…………..only a very vague memory!!!I always wondered where she must be and what she must be doing for a living and how she looks like. So just when orkut became popular I thought of tracking her down. I went through orkut to my Doha school community forum and wrote asking if anybody knew this girl and that she must have passed her 10th grade in the year 1990.After many months a another girl wrote to me saying she was her senior in the school and a very good friend of hers and thereafter had also studied with her in Manipal Medical College. But she also lost touch with her after that. So I made this new friend in orkut .She was a Pediatrician. So she would give me some doctor’s advice and I would give her some design ideas. Many months passed by. One fine morning when I was checking my orkut message there was this message waiting for me.This new friend was happy to write to me that she had found my first best friend and that she was in her friend’s list. I had been waiting patiently for this to happen…….but wondered if she would even remember someone from her 3rd grade almost 25 years later. So hesitantly I wrote to her asking her if she remembered me from her 3rd grade. Then I got a lovely reply .She said, “I don’t remember much about my childhood days but I do remember that my first best friend’s name was Hazelene!!”I was soooooooooooooo happy!!We video chatted couple of times after that. We saw each other’s kids and all. It was such a touching experience!!
Mel feels that the world is getting smaller and smaller. Thanks to social networking sites we are able to be in touch with our old friends, schoolmates, collegemates etc. But she still loves the concept of paper and pen and writing letters.
Our next topic was about child safety and what child needs to know. I had some info about this topic take from the book,http://www.amazon.com/Safe-Side-Teach-Strong-Street-Smart/dp/0060950900
We teach our children to respect all elders, don’t yell, be respectful to all etc. But do they know that it is okay not to obey all this or even do the opposite if they feel threatened or uncomfortable. So I shared couple of questions to find out where our children stand. I have attached the file with this message. It’s every parent’s nightmare to think about all this……………but I do feel that it’s good to be informed about what is going on in the world around.Varsha has had experience of working with sexually abused children. She said that she has met kids as young as 6 year olds who have been sexually abused. She also said that is a myth that only a stranger can sexually abuse or harm your kid. It is many times a family member. It is also a myth that only males can sexually abuse……even women do it.So it’s better to be safe than sorry. It also got us thinking about how important it is to have the sextalk with our kids as uncomfortable as it may seem. Every banner, Victoria secret ads etc. only adds to our children’s curiosity.Sneha feels that the more we try to hide all this information the more they want to know.Gayathri and I also shared a story. One of our friend’s daughter asked why it was wrong to wear skimpy clothes.This question from a usually shy and introvert child shocked her parents!!!But the father really gave a very well put response. He told that our bodies are our special gift from god to share with that someone special and it no more remains special if they display it to the world. In this world of spaghetti straps and miniskirts and brandconsious and fashion conscious times it is difficult to explain to our kids how to modestly dress .But I am surely going to borrow my friend’s husband words in the similar scenario. Gayathri said she felt overwhelmed with all these information………Sneha wondered if it’s possible to apply all these information in our real lives……………….I say it’s not a choice but a necessity to make our children aware of everything that goes on around the world and the real truths before they go to the real world by themselves………………Varsha feels it is better to put all the facts out to our kids and let them decide what to do with it.They should know it’s not a scary world. They should be able to trust people but at the same time not trust them blindly.
I guess there are different pieces to the puzzle of parenting.1)There is vast ocean of the information out there we get from books,articles,internet etc., 2)we have our traditional values ,3)we have our unique family equations, 4) then there is our child’s temperament and 5)then there is our temperament.I guess all these together makes the whole picture perfect!!!
Again it was a nice session!!!Thank you all for sharing your views and experiences. Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend. See you next Wednesday 4/25/2012
We started our session with a very interesting topic SIX DEGREES OF SEPARATION by Seema. Six degrees of separation refers to the idea that everyone is on average approximately six steps away, by way of introduction, from any other person on Earth, so that a chain of, “a friend of a friend" statements can be made, on average, to connect any two people in six steps or fewer. The phrase "six degrees of separation" is often used as a synonym for the idea of the "small world" phenomenon. Facebook is a very good example of it.It seems on an average 10% of our friend in our Facebook friends list will be mutual friends. We all had stories to support this idea.Seema told that one of the guy she knew very well turned out to be an old acquaintance of her best friend. Varsha has studied this topic in detail back in college and has done a project based on this topic. They picked any random person and worked to find out how many people they are connected by. She says that we are even connected to President Barack Obama by six people or less!!! Unbelievable, isn’t it? Gayathri remembered her story when she had been to Florida for a vacation and happened to meet a lovely Kannada couple. She said it was so nice to connect with someone of their mother tongue in a land so far far away from home (India)!!!Couple of years later a new guy joined in her husband’s office. Each time he passed by this new guy he felt like he has seen him before, only to realize later that it was the same guy they met in Florida. What a co-incidence!!!!Sneha had a similar experience with her next door neighbhour.They were a friendly couple. It was only when their mother in laws got friendly and started to discuss their origin had they realized that both the husbands were not only from the same village but also had studied in the same school and was of the same batch. Amazing!!!I had a very similar experience in LA where my next door neighbor’s brother in law turned out to be very good friend of my brother in law!!!!I also remembered my experience when I tracked down my 3rd grade friend which happened to be my life’s first best friend from Doha,Qatar.My family had been to Doha, Qatar when I was little. I did my half of 3rd grade and 4th grade there. I had a really wonderful friend, but I lost touch when I returned to India. I did not even know her last name or her phone number……..nothing……..even forgot her face……………only had a fond feeling when I thought of her…………..only a very vague memory!!!I always wondered where she must be and what she must be doing for a living and how she looks like. So just when orkut became popular I thought of tracking her down. I went through orkut to my Doha school community forum and wrote asking if anybody knew this girl and that she must have passed her 10th grade in the year 1990.After many months a another girl wrote to me saying she was her senior in the school and a very good friend of hers and thereafter had also studied with her in Manipal Medical College. But she also lost touch with her after that. So I made this new friend in orkut .She was a Pediatrician. So she would give me some doctor’s advice and I would give her some design ideas. Many months passed by. One fine morning when I was checking my orkut message there was this message waiting for me.This new friend was happy to write to me that she had found my first best friend and that she was in her friend’s list. I had been waiting patiently for this to happen…….but wondered if she would even remember someone from her 3rd grade almost 25 years later. So hesitantly I wrote to her asking her if she remembered me from her 3rd grade. Then I got a lovely reply .She said, “I don’t remember much about my childhood days but I do remember that my first best friend’s name was Hazelene!!”I was soooooooooooooo happy!!We video chatted couple of times after that. We saw each other’s kids and all. It was such a touching experience!!
Mel feels that the world is getting smaller and smaller. Thanks to social networking sites we are able to be in touch with our old friends, schoolmates, collegemates etc. But she still loves the concept of paper and pen and writing letters.
Our next topic was about child safety and what child needs to know. I had some info about this topic take from the book,http://www.amazon.com/Safe-Side-Teach-Strong-Street-Smart/dp/0060950900
We teach our children to respect all elders, don’t yell, be respectful to all etc. But do they know that it is okay not to obey all this or even do the opposite if they feel threatened or uncomfortable. So I shared couple of questions to find out where our children stand. I have attached the file with this message. It’s every parent’s nightmare to think about all this……………but I do feel that it’s good to be informed about what is going on in the world around.Varsha has had experience of working with sexually abused children. She said that she has met kids as young as 6 year olds who have been sexually abused. She also said that is a myth that only a stranger can sexually abuse or harm your kid. It is many times a family member. It is also a myth that only males can sexually abuse……even women do it.So it’s better to be safe than sorry. It also got us thinking about how important it is to have the sextalk with our kids as uncomfortable as it may seem. Every banner, Victoria secret ads etc. only adds to our children’s curiosity.Sneha feels that the more we try to hide all this information the more they want to know.Gayathri and I also shared a story. One of our friend’s daughter asked why it was wrong to wear skimpy clothes.This question from a usually shy and introvert child shocked her parents!!!But the father really gave a very well put response. He told that our bodies are our special gift from god to share with that someone special and it no more remains special if they display it to the world. In this world of spaghetti straps and miniskirts and brandconsious and fashion conscious times it is difficult to explain to our kids how to modestly dress .But I am surely going to borrow my friend’s husband words in the similar scenario. Gayathri said she felt overwhelmed with all these information………Sneha wondered if it’s possible to apply all these information in our real lives……………….I say it’s not a choice but a necessity to make our children aware of everything that goes on around the world and the real truths before they go to the real world by themselves………………Varsha feels it is better to put all the facts out to our kids and let them decide what to do with it.They should know it’s not a scary world. They should be able to trust people but at the same time not trust them blindly.
I guess there are different pieces to the puzzle of parenting.1)There is vast ocean of the information out there we get from books,articles,internet etc., 2)we have our traditional values ,3)we have our unique family equations, 4) then there is our child’s temperament and 5)then there is our temperament.I guess all these together makes the whole picture perfect!!!
Again it was a nice session!!!Thank you all for sharing your views and experiences. Hope you all are having a wonderful weekend. See you next Wednesday 4/25/2012
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