Editor in Chief: Moh. Reza Huwaida Friday, March 29th, 2024

Of Roses and Thorns

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Of Roses and Thorns

It was a view from one of the charity camps that were built to collect aid for the victims of earthquake. The camp was rapidly expanding as more and more people were coming with money, edibles, blankets and other necessities of life for their displaced and calamity-hit brothers and sisters. Huge piles of these things could be noticed on a number of places from where they were being loaded on trucks and sent to the quake-hit areas. There was no distinction of age, gender, religion, color or social status and people were coming enthusiastically to share the pain of their countrymen.

The sight that caught my attention was of small children who accompanied their parents to the camp. Although their parents were doing all the contribution but in order to inculcate the spirit of charity and kindness in their children, they provided maximum chance to their children to take part in this good act. A father came who was holding the hand of his hardly 6 year old son and stood in a line where people were putting in cash in a box. When their turn came, father took the money out of his pocket, handed it over to his son and let his son put it in the box with his tiny hands.

On other such occasion, a father was carrying a bag of edibles in his one hand while in his other hand, he held the hand of his daughter who was hardly able to walk on her own. When they came close to the collection point, the father let his child hold a side of the bag and they handed it over to the person responsible for the collection.

These two examples brought to us the most perfect way of teaching the lesson of generosity to the children. In the same way, all the other good things or lessons can be taught to the children by giving them exposure to the good environment and making their practical contribution in it.

According to psychology, lessons learnt or habits adopted in the childhood or teenage remain permanently with a person and thus play their vital role in molding the personality in the different stages of life to follow. Good habits thus learnt accompany and prosper a person both morally and materially all through his life. While bad habits adopted also keep tormenting one's personality for the rest of his life. It is thus essential that parents need to be very careful while bringing up a child.

It is said that an educated man would be beneficial for himself while an educated mother would bring up an educated family and numerous families would join together to form a village, and then a city, a country and at last the whole world would be educated.

It is also essential that parents need to have the rudimentary knowledge of psychology and children's behaviors so that they might be able to bring up a child that should have a very balanced personality.

Children have been compared to a field that is empty and ready to be sown. Whatever we sow today, same kind of tree or crop will grow on it in future. If we grow a thorn today, a thorny and unkind plant would grow up that would tease and hurt the people with its thorns. Contrary to this, if we sow a seed of a fruit, then a tree would come up that would cherish the people with its ripe and sweet fruit and would shelter the people under its cool and comforting shade.

But it should not be forgotten that if a field is left without any cultivation, a seed or a small spore or a broken branch of another tree might land on it from outside and would germinate and grow into a mature tree. Now it depends on your luck that the external seed or branch was good or bad.

Another important point worth-mentioning in this regard is the importance of hard work and labor. To bring up a plant is very difficult and it needs continuous vigilance and effort so that it should not get dried, be eaten away by grazing animals or attacked and destroyed by germs and diseases. Parents should know it right from the beginning that if they want to bring up fruitful and beneficial plant, they will have to accept and extend the hard work required for the purpose.

When a person cultivates something, then he becomes responsible for reaping the crop of it. If you sow a good seed and work hard for many years and at last come up with a fruitful tree, you definitely feel pride and enjoy in eating the fruit and sharing with others. But the dark side of this picture must not escape your attention either. If you sow a thorn and it grows into a big tree causing constant trouble to others, you will have to take your share in it. Such a tree would keep you in constant anguish and discomfort, punishing you of the mistake that you committed or the laziness you showed.

History is full of cruel kings, dictators, Generals or series killers who showed no mercy while piling the dead bodies of innocents and making the tower of human heads. Experts of social behaviors have found an interesting and a common trait about the behavior of such abnormal killers that they all had more or less very unsatisfied and rather victimized childhood life. The harsh behaviors or cruel treatments that they went through in their childhood, remain stuck in their memories for the rest of their lives and when they got enough power to decide upon the fate of the masses, this hidden fire came on surface and burnt down the towns and cities in revenge. They were never able to get rid of those grim and gloomy memories of their sufferings.

It is the reason why parents are urged to avoid any situation or treatment that should leave a dark print on the minds of their children and be responsible for their improper or in some cases abnormal personalities and behaviors in future.

The exact opposite of it can also be imagined. A sweet home, loving parents, good behaviors, kindness and consideration and many more things that can combine together to leave a pleasing effect and memory to the child and would turn the child being very pleasant and having the realization of the importance of these good factors and definitely he would be expected to show extreme concern about these things not only for himself but for the people around him and would be remembered as a person kind and considerate for the people around him, absolutely opposite to those stone-hearted and brutal series killers.
Children have been resembled to the flowers and if these flowers are nourished and taken care of, our houses and societies would be scented by their fragrance.

Mohammad Rasool Shah is the permanent writer of the Daily Outlook Afghanistan and teaches English at Afghan-Turk School, Kabul. Email your suggestions and opinions at muhammadrasoolshah@gmail.com

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