Positive Communication:

Positive parent/child communication makes a smarter child, a proud parent and coherent family. Read the following story and share your thoughts:

Once upon a time, a mother sent her son to study in a remote area. The mother was a nomad who lived in the forest with her family. They had goats, cattle and camels. They moved a lot in search of greener pastures and water. No means of modern communication was available. There were no computers, telephones, faxes, or post offices. There were no letters to write. The only means of communication was a word of mouth given to a traveler.

The son met a traveler who was going to his mother’s neighborhood. He told him to pass the following oral message to his mother:

“Mom, I pray five times a day with only one ablution”

When the mother was told what her son said, she cried and cried. She lamented that her son was starving and very broke. She asked the man to see her before he goes back to her son.

The reason for the mother’s cry was because Muslims pray five times a day at dawn, noon, early evening, sunset and late evening. They have to wash their faces, arms, legs and hair in a process known as ablution. The ablution is broken if one goes to the bathroom, passes gas, sleeps, or has physical contact with a person of opposite sex who is not related to them or eats specific foods.  Because of these many factors that break ablution, no one can keep it for a whole day.

The mother understood that her son was basically saying: “Mom, I do not have enough food to eat or enough water to drink. Therefore, I do not go to the bathroom all day every day because my stomach is empty” The traveler was unable to understand the message this way.

The mother sent a container full of ghee and put 30 cubes of beef steak in another container. She wanted her son to eat the meat and sell the ghee because it was very valuable in that region.  The mother asked the traveler to pass the following message to her son:

“My son, the month is 30 days long and the river is full”.

The traveler ate 19 cubes of the meat on the way and stole some of the ghee. He gave nine cubes of meat and a small amount of ghee to the son and he told him that his mother wanted him to know that the month ends at 30 and the river is full.

The son understood that his mother sent him 30 pieces of meat and a full container of ghee. After looking into the contents of the two containers, the son asked the traveler what happened to the meat and ghee. The traveler was shocked. He thought the young man has sprits that told him what he did and he told him the truth. The son recovered some ghee from the traveler.

Lesson: This story shows that with appropriate socialization and positive communication, parents can build greater understanding and conversational skills with their kids. In this story, all three characters spoke the same language but the traveler did not understand the real meaning of the conversation between the mother and her son!

Misunderstanding:

Lack of positive communication produces a confused child, a disappointed parent and disoriented family. Now read this story and respond with your thoughts:

Somalia is a Semi-arid country where rainfall is scarce. People travel for many hours to fetch water for their pastoralist families. They move to the areas with the greenest pastures which are some times far away from water sources.

A man traveled with his son to fetch water for the family. The father decided to take some animals for sale in a far away village. He asked his son to go back to the family with the water and asked him to do several other things.

The first thing he asked him was to slaughter a male lamb called Lax for the family because the family did not have enough food. He also told him that the area where the family lived had no rain or grass. He asked his son to move the family to Maaneed which had a little bit more rain at the time.

Upon arrival, the son found that another one of the family’s lambs called Wan had a broken leg. He went ahead and followed his father’s instructions and slaughtered Lax.  He also found that it rained a lot in the area where the family lived. The son moved the family to the area where his father asked him to move them.

Wan, the lamb with the broken limb could not walk and it took the family twice as much time to reach their destination. When they arrived in the new area, it had less rain and less grass. The father came and slaughtered the broken lamb, returned the family to their original area and cursed his son for his lack of wisdom!

Lesson: There is communication breakdown between these two family members. The father’s aim is to feed his family and choose the most prosperous area for them. The son does not understand his father’s objectives. He follows his words without understanding them properly. As a parent, you can inculcate critical thinking skills and rationality in your kids. If you don’t, you will pay a huge price for your neglect.