Toastmasters Project # 2

As promised, here is the complete text of my Toastmasters Project # 2

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John Wilmot said – Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories. 

Fellow toastmaster and guests, Good Evening

It has been said that parenting is the most difficult job, and the most important responsibility, we will ever have in our life. Unfortunately, we receive little or no formal training in parenting. Yet we are constantly criticized for every mistake we make. 

No one teaches us how to nurture, support, guide and educate our child to become a responsible adult. Most of us muddle along on our own. Being a mother of 2, I have realized that there are few essential skills for any parent. Today, I am going to talk about 3 of them – Active Listening, Leading by Example and Positive Praising.

First of all, Active listening

Listening is one thing children wish their parents would do more often. It is not the same as hearing. To get the full meaning of what someone is saying, it’s necessary to listen actively.

Active listening involves only 3 simple steps

• Pay Attention – Stop whatever you’re doing and give your child your full attention.
• Acknowledge What Is Said With A Brief Listening Response – e.g. ‘Oh,…’ ‘Mmmm…’. Allow your child to explore her own thoughts. Don’t jump in with advice or solutions.
• Name The Feeling – To enable your child to express her feelings better, give the feeling a name – anger, frustration.

You can always ask questions and check out what you’ve heard.

Also, listening need NOT be agreeing. Active listening allows us to see the logic and value in the child’s point of view. We can then negotiate to reach a compromise – even with a small child.

Secondly, Lead by Example

It is habitual for my father-in-law to haggle with flower vendors and brand them as cheats. One day, I heard my son shout at a regular flower vendor – “Hey, you can go. We will not buy flowers from you. You are a cheat”

Having witnessed this, I realized the importance of “leading by example”. Small children copy us more precisely than a photocopier.

Teaching by example is to do with how we treat and talk about others outside the family. It is to do with how we lead our lives. We teach respect for all persons by the examples we set. Teaching kids respect by respecting them is one way. Nothing else is more permanently etched in our children’s’ minds than this.

We cannot turn our child’s ears off when we let out a dirty word. We cannot cover their eyes every time something amoral happens on television. And we cannot delete dishonest moves from their brains.

If we expect our children to follow our rules we must lead by example.

Thirdly, Positive Praising

When I attended my son’s sporting event at school, his headmistress said “Always praise your child using simple adjectives or sentences such as “very good, great job done, I am proud of you”. Your child will not only get motivated to do better but also cherish it always”

Children increase behaviors that get our attention, whether the attention is pleasant, happy, excited, or even angry. The behaviors we praise in our child will tend to be appropriate.

It is important to praise your child’s behavior when it occurs and when the behaviour is appropriate. The knack is to catch them being good, praise immediately and ignore inappropriate behaviour. Praise increases the child’s self-esteem and confidence. Praise is reinforcing to children when it is delivered with eye contact, a smile, energy, hugs and sincerity.

4 key points to note here

• Be Positive… pay attention to good behavior not bad.
• Be Specific… describe what you appreciate.
• Praise What They Do… and not what they are.
• Encourage your children to praise siblings and friends.

Parenting is sheer hard work. There is no shortcut. It is always trial and error. Just as we want our kids to learn from us, we should also walk that extra mile to learn from them. Only then we will have successful relationship with our children and they will respect us for what we have got out of them.

Fellow Toastmaster and guests,

To Summarize – Some of the essential skills for effective parenting are

Active Listening – Focusing entirely on what is being said

Leading by Example – Be the change what you want to see

Positive Praising – All about positive reinforcement

Barbara Kingsolver once said “It kills you to see your children grow up.  But I guess it would kill you quicker if they didn’t.”

Toastmasters Project # 1: Ice Breaker

Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,
And sorry I could not travel both
And be one traveler, long I stood
And looked down one as far as I could
To where it bent in the undergrowth;

Fellow Toastmaster and guests, Good Evening

I am the eldest daughter of Re and Vij Pai. I was born on Valentine’s Day to a happy mother and a disappointed father. My father wanted a son.

My sister was born a year later increasing my father’s disappointment. After a gap of 7 years, my father’s prayers were answered. My brother was born.

Since both my parents were bank employees, my upbringing happened at my maternal grand parents’ house. My grandfather was a freedom fighter. Although he never went to school, he could fix any mechanical device all by himself.

My grandmother was a homemaker. She was a religious lady.

My first beautiful memories of childhood start from here.

As I close my eyes, I see myself running in the small garden outside their house plucking leaves and flowers.

My grandfather hauling me up on the baby seat of his bicycle and drop me to my nursery school. I can still smell the smell of my lunch box packed with hot Rice with Milk. I can still see my BIG class room with its semi-circle shaped wooden mats.

I am among the lucky few who got to study in 8 different schools in a span of 8 years.

After schooling, I did my bachelor degree majoring in computer science from SJR College.

In between school and college, my father had resigned from bank services to open his own restaurant.

This being close to my college proved disastrous. As I entered, boys would welcome me with comments on how little chutney was being served or that the prices were high. Some even suggested that I take them for a free lunch one of the days. How embarrassed I would feel?

Being born on Valentine’s Day, I grew up with the thought that I should marry only for love. I really do not recollect when this thought came to sit firmly in my head – but it did. During my graduation, I was more in love with the thought of falling in love than love itself.

So, when one of my classmates proposed, I was over the moon. I was so happy that I even took to writing poetry and singing those old hindi romantic songs

Well, this definitely had an impact on my Pre University Board results. I barely managed to pass with 60%. My dream of studying medicine ended. So did my romance.

I learnt an important lesson – never mix your personal life with your professional career. I decided not to repeat this mistake ever again.

When I was wondering on next steps, a cousin suggested MCA. I took his suggestion and passed out of MCA with distinction.

My first job was with Iflex Solutions.

Now that I was professionally settled, my parents wanted me to marry. I was in a fix. How could I marry someone who I did not know anything about?

One day as I was walking, someone called out to me. I turned to see Sr, my college-mate waving at me. We had not been in touch over the last 3-4 years and to meet after a long time was really good.

Little did I realize that fate had something in store for me? Several months later, over coffee I shared my concerns about marriage with him. He suggested “Why would not anyone marry you? All you have to do is find a person you like and ask him to marry you.” My hasty reaction was “It is easy for you to say. Will YOU marry me?” He laughed and said “YES, ofcourse”. I was shocked. It took sometime for this to sink in. I accepted humbly. May be this was a mistake because even today, he accuses me of tricking him into marrying me

Today we are proud parents of 2 naughty but sweet children – Akash and Aditi. Akash is 5 years and Aditi is 8 months old. All my free time gets spent in their company leaving me with no time to pursue my hobbies of Reading, Stained Glass or embroidery.

There were turning points in my life where I had to take decisions. Today, when I look back, may be:

I shall be telling this with a sigh
Somewhere ages and ages hence:
Two roads diverged in a wood, and I—
I took the one less traveled by,
And that has made all the difference.

Toastmasters Club

I am terrified of public speaking. In a formal gathering of even 5 people, I cannot talk. My heart thumps faster, my hands and feet go numb, I start shaking and shivering. Almost all times, I have wished I were dead.

Now, my role in the organization demands that I walk up to the stage and talk in front of at least 250-300 people at any given time. I have been shirking all opportunities of public speaking. However, when I realized this was becoming hard and almost impossible, I decided to do something about this.

That’s when I heard of Toastmasters club. This re-kindled my interest to get over my fear of public speaking. So, as soon as I got an opportunity, I enrolled myself into Toastmasters Club.

It has been extremely good experience so far. I have managed to complete 4 speaking projects (out of total 10 to become a competent communicator (CC)). I will be doing the 5th one this month. So, wish me luck.

For those who want to use my projects as templates, I will start posting them here…