Months of May and June are here and so is the time of verdict! The twelfth boards CBSE result is out, ICSE is on its way, JEE and IB not too far. Feelings of elation, heart breaking despair and finality are staring at us parents in the face. Many of us didn’t sleep too well after the CBSE result and might be refusing to get up to the reality of our children’s not meeting our expectations or results being a shade lower in comparison to their peers. Many of us also woke up with a smile but with a feeling of some emptiness today.Smiles commemorating the pride of doing it right as per the validation given by our children’s board results. Emptiness because we have been fired from the most important job of nagging them to study. From here on, we are progressing into being a spectator in our children’s successes and failures.Our credit and blame taking phase of them doing well or not so well with their lives is over.
Academic achievement is a long yardstick we adults have been holding our kids to forever.And with the results out, we parents, grandparents, neighbours and relatives have found a new hobby to dissect the results in million minute pieces. Judgements are the name of the game today … The ones who have done well have been crowned along with their parents to have done it right.The others wondering where did they go wrong and if so many children …who they considered to be not quite there could make it … how in the hell did they miss the bandwagon themselves.
Funny it is as we can’t seem to remember the anxiety of results and our parents anxiety of our own times. All we remember is that given the circumstances , with such little exposure , we did pretty well. How many times have we justified to our kids and ourselves …that in our times marks in nineties weren’t so easily given. Amazing it is how the circle of life completes right in front of us.We are and should be wiser because we have seen with our own eyes that marks haven’t always translated in success ( success which might mean different things for all of us) for many of our peers. Many of us who had it rough ended up being tougher and are standing taller in our ability to adapt to the world around.
Then why should we not celebrate the resilience our kids have shown , the efforts they have put in and their commitment and hard work and only celebrate or mourn the percentages they have got. Because life isn’t easy from here on for them. Wishing we instead of taking credit for how well our children have done in their exams, can boast of being parents who let them be their own people and let them live their own dreams. Dreams that aren’t perfect by the society’s standards or what success means to us.
Let our yardstick be there only to measure how much we let their unique self develop, how much we have taught them about giving back to people who haven’t seen it as good as them and how much encouragement we have given them to take that hard decision and get back up after they have fallen flat on their faces.
Because we will be more known for the characters we have built and the kindness, smiles and cheer our children will end up spreading in this world! We rather do the job of making this world a better place with our children instead of just being proud of the top scorers or being the dejected parents of low scorers. Not that both kinds will not have an equal chance to turn out to be good people, not that it’s okay to not do well or okay to not work hard.It’s awesome to do well , it’s a great feeling to be right there but it’s also ok to keep trying and wait for your own shining moment ,where ever it comes from. And yes, all our children will find a place under the sun… Their Own Place!
Hope we parents are able to teach all of them that hard work …works and kindness pays.
And that is surely a credit we parents can take and should take!
SAAKSHI SINGLA 
So we’ll written Saakshi. The voice of every sensible parent. We should just allow them be and equip them with the skill to discriminate the right from the wrong and prioritize what lies before them. Finally they need to dream big and follow it.
Well said Saakshi . Our kids make us proud even if they don’t come at the top of their class. As long as they grow up to be good people and are happy with their lives we would have succeeded in our parenting. Who remembers marks after a couple of years.