On May 26 an ex-national spokesperson of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of India named Nupur Sharma commented on the Prophet Muhammad (SM) while participating in a debate on the Gyanvapi Mosque dispute that started a firestorm among the Muslim communities of the country. The fire has also been spread among the Muslim majority countries of the world.
The angle of my article would be to explore the consequences of her controversial comment that hurt feelings of the devout Muslims. Her comment not only led to a huge protest and criticism all over the world but also she got suspended from the party along with the other politician named Naveen Kumar Jindal who supported her. Besides, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the other Muslim majority countries have criticised the incident, asked for the Indian government’s public apology and boycotted Indian products.
Why should I be the one to write the article?
As a devout Muslim from a Muslim majority country, I criticize this unpleasant event by writing the article and demand an end to bigotry. I want peace and harmony among the believers of all religions in the world hoping to have a better world to live in.
Toxic parenting has become a common occurrence around us. We often notice that children are becoming socially awkward or violent with others or committing suicide due to failure in the examinations, social relationships and so on. It’s also noticeable that adults are failing in their relationships, unhappy in their social and personal life, depressed, committing suicide etc. Not all but in the significant cases, these children and adults are somehow abused by their parents which is leading them to a lack of self-confidence, social awkwardness, feeling demotivated, anxiety and depression.
Parents protect their children from harm and provide them with their basic needs such as food, clothing, habitat, medical care and education. They also provide their children with financial support, safety, supervision and control. But sometimes they start causing emotional damage to their children through their negative and poisonous behaviour and this is how they turn themselves into toxic parents. They start expecting higher and higher from their children and compare them with other’s children. They nip their children’s potential in the bud and force them to fulfil their dreams neglecting the children’s dreams. Sometimes they start asking for a return from their children as they are spending for them.
There are different types of toxic parents such as the inadequate parents, the controllers, the alcoholics, the verbal abusers, the physical abusers and the sexual abusers. The inadequate parents remain busy with their problems and not only ignore taking care of their children but also force their children to take care of them. The controllers use guilt, manipulation, and over-helpfulness as their strong weapons toward their children to control their children’s lives. The alcoholics are always mired in denial and have chaotic mood swings. They get a little chance to do parenting towards their children. The verbal abusers constantly make fun of their children, criticize them, humiliate them and also curse them. The physical abusers cannot control their rage and hurt their children physically but often blame their children for their behaviour. The sexual abusers are the ultimate betrayers. They ruin their children’s childhood.
On the contrary, good parents have several traits that made them successful in their parenthood. Love and affection from parents are one of the greatest needs of children. Good parents deliver adequate love and affection to their children that make them psychologically developed. Besides, they have good communication with their children and their children also feel free, reliable and safe to share their words with them. They often set limits for their children so that they do not become reckless in their lives. Another trait of good parents is they manage their stress and never do anything wrong to their children or hurt them by giving excuses for being stressed. They become role models to their children, teach them how to take responsibility in their lives and never encourage them to be dependent on them. Children of good parents get to learn new positive experiences under their parents’ supervision.
Children of toxic parents can rarely have a normal life like others. They face difficulties while socializing with others. They often fail in their relationships with their partners and children. They think themselves liable for whatever happens to them and start hating themselves. They often become violent or co-dependent or ignorant of their partners. Sometimes despite their unwillingness, they are controlled by their parents and become unable to be individuals. Due to depression and anxiety, they often kill themselves or remain living dead for the rest of their lives.
Children are also human beings. They deserve love and care. They have the right to make the decisions in their lives. Parents can contribute a lot by instructing them about good and bad but they should not force their opinion on their children. This makes the children frustrated and their self-worthiness becomes questioned. Every child is born with their potential. Parents should help them to find out their potential and interests. Today’s children are tomorrow’s world leaders. If they can unleash their potential and work with them, numerous possibilities will come and they can make a better future for the world.
As conscious human beings, each of us should focus on good parenting and stop toxic parenting right now. A better future for the children is in our hands. We can protect the very heart of the children’s childhood just by giving them proper love and care as well as opportunities to unleash their potential. We have to give them the chance to be different from us and become individuals.
Neera just moved in her new flat last week. She never stayed away from home but this time she had to move in a whole new city for work. Now she’s trying her level best to cope up with the new place and she has already made some progress too. People living in her neighborhood are so kind to her. They are friendly and helpful. They welcomed her warmly with a lot of gifts and best wishes.
Today is a big day at work for Neera and so she is getting ready. When she is about to go out she notices a little boy standing outside her door. The boy is carrying a small basket and asks her to help him with some money as he is poor and he needs the money for his sick mother’s treatment. Neera ignores the boy and say that she is getting late for her first day at work.
When she reaches her workplace, she becomes surprised seeing a big arrangement for welcoming her. She thanks her colleagues for the arrangement and returns home at night with a lot of gifts. She starts thinking herself lucky for getting cordial acceptance by both her neighbors and colleagues. She thought that she’s all alone in the city but actually she’s not.
After returning home, she notices that the little boy is still on her doorstep with tearful eyes. She feels irritated and asks him what he wants but the boy remains still and starts weeping. Then he starts talking slowly about his mother’s death. She asks him about his father but the boy doesn’t know where he is. He left them a long ago.
Neera becomes worried because she has no idea about what to do right now. She can’t ignore the boy and leave him on the road alone at night and also can’t keep the unknown boy at her house. So she calls the police and asks them to take care of the boy and goes to sleep after a long busy day.
In the next morning, a police officer comes to visit her with the boy and asks her if she’s interested in adopting him. Otherwise they’ll give him to another family whoever will be interested in adopting him. She notices that the little boy is looking at her with tearful eyes and trying to say that he would love to stay with her. Neera fails to ignore the boy this time and agrees to adopt him.
After five years, everything is changed around Neera. Now she understands that once she was overwhelmed by the wishes of the fake well-wishers around her. There is none but a single true well-wisher of her who is her adopted son, Neeloy. Though she ignored him that day and prioritized her first day at work and competitive colleagues. That was truly a big day for her but not for that big arrangement at her work; for getting Neeloy in her life.
Who are we? Human beings? Really? As human beings, aren’t we suppose to have some human rights? Why are we threatened by the people around us all the time?
People start cursing us if we try to do something against their wills. We want the right to be an individual. We want to do whatever we want to do. We want to say whatever we want to say without any fear or hesitation. We want to live freely. We are not the slaves of the people around us and the people around us are not God too. We have only one God to whom we are accountable for our deeds. We have rights to live, speak, give our opinions, learn things, take our own decisions and enjoy our life.
These toxic people around us are none but our closer ones who think that only by following their instructions we can be successful in our lives otherwise we will suffer in the long run. Whatever happens they just keep forcing us for implementing their wills and nip our potentials in the bud. Sometimes their higher expectations and continuous pressure lead us to commit suicide or remain living dead for the rest of their lives. We condemn this culture and want to get rid of it as soon as possible. Whoever the people are to us they have no right to make our lives hell and ruin our potentials.
Nondefensiveness is an interesting skill to learn for dealing with people around us. We often try to defend ourselves to win an argument with people which actually lengthens the argument and makes us sorry. We hand over much of our power to the people unconsciously by defending ourselves while arguing. But we don’t need to argue, apologize or explain; we just need to respond nondefensively which will help us to reserve our power, gain more control over ourselves and value our feelings about ourselves over people’s sayings about us.
We often think that money can buy everything and these everything can make us happy. So we hanker after money for the entire life. We not only sacrifice our happiness for riches, fame and power but also don’t care about the sources of our actual happiness much. After a certain period of time we become all alone as we valued money in our earlier days more than our relationships with our family and friends and spent more time hankering after money than passing time with them. People may think that we are happy or we may show off our fake happiness to them but ultimately we suffer from pain inside. Many well established people who seemed happy to us committed suicide due to the loneliness. Obviously we need money in our lives but there should be a limit. We often cross the limit to get all the best things in our lives. And so on the last days of our lives we may feel that we have everything that we purchased once but there’s no one as our true well wishers. Moreover, we must leave all our riches before death. We cannot take a single dime with us. So having good relationships with our family and friends, passing enough time with them are necessary. They are the sources of our actual happiness. At the end of our lives we all need love and care from them. Our money can give us almost everything we want but true love, care and peace cannot be purchased. Only our closest ones can provide us with these and also remember us and pray for us with love and respect even after our death.
04:00 am Waking up, Meditating 04:30 am Walking 05:00 am Having Meal 1 (Breakfast) 05:30 am Reading 06:00 am Writing 06:30 am Exercise, Yoga 07:00 am Having Shower 07:30 am Having Meal 2 08:00 am Start Working 12:00 pm Having Meal 3 (Lunch) 03:00 pm Having Meal 4 (Snacks) 05:00 pm Having Meal 5 (Supper) 08:00 pm Sleeping
Experiential Learning theory is given by David A. Kolb and from the name of the theory it can be learnt that it is a theory of learning from experiences. It is four-stage cyclical learning theory and the stages are, concrete experience, observation and reflection, forming abstract concepts and testing in new situations. Here concrete experience is experiencing something from any situation or fieldwork. In this case, the experience is gathered from a totally new situation. Then the second step, observation and reflection come where it is said that the new experience is observed properly and reflecting back on the experience gathered. Then in the third step, an abstract concept is formed by the individuals. The individual conceptualizes the experience according to a theory or model. Finally, the gathered experience is tested by the induvial in new situations to learn that whether it works or not.
Cognitive Learning theory is given by Edward Tolman where it is said that individual responds to stimuli and also act on attitudes, beliefs, feelings, thoughts and strive towards objectives. Tolman is the first who claimed that individuals draw an image in his or her mind which is called a cognitive map. The cognitive map is an image of the external environment. The external environment offers them experiences which help in developing their mental image or cognitive map. Cognitive learning theory of Tolman is based on human behaviour’s cognitive model. Freewill and positive sides of human behaviour are emphasised by this theory. Cognition is thoughts, beliefs, ideas, knowledge, feelings of individuals which are developed to achieve goals and objectives.
Ishrata 