Working parents, kids have little to say to each other

Meeta Saigal and her husband Karthik (names changed) used to keep long hours at work and fretted about not being able to devote as much time with their kids—then aged 13 and 10—as they would have liked to. “They were pretty much on their own for most of the day, and we hardly knew what was happening in their lives, outside of the usual school and exam discussions.” Eventually, Meeta decided to quit her graphic designer job, work on freelance assignments instead, and “be there” for the children.“I figured it’d be great to finally get involved in what they were doing and bond with them,” she said, shaking her head.
Within a few months, though, it became clear that the plan was going awry. “We would have these constant quarrels because the kids said I was interfering with their lives and not giving them ‘space’. Suddenly, from not being around at all, I was around too much,” she sighed. “It was exhausting.” The children resented the sudden restrictions after years of complete freedom. Everything from curfews to how long they were using the computer turned the house into a battleground. It took the deft handling of a family friend, who was also a psychologist, to bring peace.
The issue of space, how much of it to give kids, and the balance between freedom and discipline is one that has been increasingly worrying Mumbai parents, say mental health experts. At one end are double-income families—a necessity here due to the high cost of living—where the long work hours mean zero communication between parents and kids. At the other end is the family with a stay-at-home parent—most often the mother—where there may be too much attention on the child, leading to too little space for the latter. Both situations produce their own problems.
“I get cases with both these scenarios,” said Dr Kersi Chavda, former president, Bombay Psychiatric Society. “In families where there is ‘helicopter parenting’, it creates an almost claustrophobic environment for the child. And then there are homes where it’s the opposite— ‘latchkey’ kids who let themselves into an empty house, are left by themselves for hours, and barely get any time with their parents.”
It’s essential for parents to strike the right balance while communicating with their child, says developmental pediatrician Dr Samir Dalwai. “A parent needs to recognize that the child is an independent being who needs to develop her or his own individuality, increasingly over childhood,” he said. “Hence, parenting is a process that needs to be less hands-on and more ‘minds-on’ as the child grows. Any deviation from this will impact the independent individual ability of the child.”
Too much or too little involvement in the child’s life can lead to personality problems. “There is a period of healthy rebellion that all kids go through at a certain age,” says Dr Chavda. “The child who is constantly told what to do and given no breathing room might decide to ‘act out’ and turn to alcohol, drugs or early sexual activity. For those whose parents give them barely any time, the same often happens—as a cry for attention.”
The issues can continue into adulthood. “I see adults who are timid, afraid of taking decisions for themselves. When I ask about their childhood, I find out that they grew up in an extremely stifling environment, with parents who never let them take any decision or try anything new,” Dr Chavda says. “They lose confidence in their own abilities.” The tendency as an adult is to then latch on to a spouse for affirmation. Kids who grew up with distant parents too have trouble forming healthy relationships later in life.
Dr Chavda recommends finding the right balance through “supervised neglect”. That, he says, is when a child is allowed to explore life on her or his own but the parents know what she or he is doing.
As lifestyles get more frenetic, maintaining healthy communication will continue to get trickier, says Dr Dalwai.
He mentions how there are newer fallouts of the “space” issue. “Both parents working and hence too focused on monitoring the child all the time; and the other where since one parent is at home, there is a feeling that nothing more needs to be done,” he says. “So there are parents who have an electronic surveillance system comparable to banks, whereas a parent at home would be too busy in tele-serials to know what the kid is doing online in the next room or in the neighbourhood.”