ABOUT "INTERNALIZATION" - Part 3

 The third thing I tell parents is to help their children learn their own values, rather than try to force their values on their children. For some parents it can be very difficult especially if they firmly believe that they already 'know' what the best values are for their children. 

One of my daughters wears a hijab, one doesn't. When I asked the younger one one day about it, she said she knows she will do it one day, but only when her own heart tells her she should start doing it now. I said that was absolutely fine with me, and eventually I would like it to be her decision because I want her to act exactly the same way in my absence, as she does in my presence. Surprised by this comment she asked what I meant so I told her a story.

When we were in medical college we used to go home at the end of the day in the college bus which was called a 'point'. One day the point broke down while it had stopped to drop a girl outside her home. She waited for several minutes for the point to move on but when it didn't she finally took a shawl out of her bag, and covered herself fully in it before entering her home. Being naive uni students then, we had a good laugh about the contrast between her being so fashionably dressed in the College while clearly giving her parents an impression that she was always covered in a chadar (shawl) in College whole day. It took me a long time to decipher the deeper meaning of what we had observed that day.

I told my daughter that I wanted her to be exactly the same person both in my presence and absence, and to do what she believed to be the right thing to do, rather doing something just to please her parents without her heart being in it.

to be continued...