Why do we not talk with children on certain topics?

Why Talking Matters

This finds place at Hindu EDGE. Thanks are due to the team there.

Will we be better off discussing with children, listening to their views, and trying to put forth issues in as neutral a manner as possible?

Schools avoid bringing up topics ranging from gambling to pornography for discussion with students. It is not that we have very open environments at home either. Talking of periods, for example, is a taboo. A couple of months ago, at a workshop on children’s literature, we discussed why hardly any book, primarily catering to children, talked of death. The list is lengthy. There are, of course, no explanations offered by us adults.

Enough has been written on sex education in this context. Let us try to look at caste and religion. Few schools discuss these topics. Many prefer silence or ignorance.

Reports of caste-based discrimination in schools are common. These include students refusing to eat food cooked by a lower caste cook, or getting lower caste schoolmates to clean toilets at schools. Carnatic musician and author T M Krishna mentioned, during a meet on peace education, how schools which claimed to be liberal and alternative also stayed away from problematizing caste. Schools where a majority of the teachers belong to the upper caste and a majority of the students hail from lower castes are not rare. One can only guess the dynamics there.

Coming to religion, Kushalrani Gulab in her review of Nazia Erum’s Mothering a Muslim writes,“. . book speaks of increased religion-based bullying and the systemic othering of Muslim students in India’s progressive schools. . of the 118 Muslim families with children aged between five and 20 interviewed in Delhi/NCR, 100 said they’d been called ‘terrorist’ and/or ‘Pakistani’”.

Brushed under the carpet

If I go back to my school days, our teachers pretended as if BabriMasjid had never happened. At home, the Ganga Jumni tehzeeb, depicting brotherhood was often discussed, but the other side of the coin was seldom talked of — acrimony and hatred. Charity, perhaps, is easier. So, it begins at home.

We refrain from discussing problematic situations and then expect children — when they grow up — to understand the problems and, in cases, solve them as well. Will we be better off by talking with children, listening to their views and concerns, and trying to put forth the issue in as neutral a manner as possible? A manner which helps them decide their path? Of course, for this, we also need to enable space to take decisions, but that we will discuss some other day.

Coming to the books again; those we create primarily for children. It is high time for these books to move away from the goody-goody stories and flowery-starry backgrounds.

To return to the question I began with, why do we avoid conversations on ‘difficult’ topics with children? Do we believe that the children are too young to comprehend? Do we lack the confidence to accept them as individuals and talk to them as we talk with (other) adults? Are we scared that children may end up with opinion(s) other than ours? That they may question some of our actions? Do we lack confidence in our skills — raising children, communicating, to agree to disagree?

Is this how we deal with unpleasant conversations, as a society? Postpone the discussion at the risk of exacerbating the situation? Do we enjoy fooling ourselves, that our children — in the Internet age — will not be aware to the world outside of what we create for them at homes and schools?

Where is this leading us to?