Harpreet Singh Grover, an entrepreneur and content creator, took his young daughter to a swimming pool in Mumbai. However, unlike any other parent, he didn’t set a time limit on her. She was free to swim and frolic around in the pool for as long as she wanted to, and after 3.5 hours of fun, she was ready to go home.
I found this to be a refreshing take on parenting. Wouldn’t we all want to sit around in a pool for three hours? Wouldn’t we all want to just ‘live in the moment’ without worrying about time or running from pillar to post? Why then do we impose this same mindset and put our children in the rat race starting at mere 18 months?
You’ll find children today going to multiple classes after school and they just don’t have the time to sit around or play. They don’t have the time to even understand where their interests lie. And the biggest issue is that they don’t have time to form real connections and relationships with their parents, friends or other family members.
“In my previous line of work where I interacted with a lot of young students, I noticed that many of them were opposed to change. They were often too set in their ways to accept any transformation coming their way,” says Harpreet.
After turning 35 or 40, usually such people realise that they aren’t doing what they love. They realise that a lot of mistakes they made were because of the way they were raised, he explains.
The 41-year-old ran a startup called CoCubes which connected colleges and companies for placements where his interactions with fresh graduates raised several red flags.
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Read more >“If somebody had been told that they were shy, they carried that throughout their life as a fact about themselves” he says.
However, it wasn’t until much later that he discovered the real repercussions of effective communication with kids. He sold his startup in 2016 when his daughter was an infant. As he immersed himself in parenthood and started researching child psychology, he found that establishing a solid foundation in the early years was the key to a well-rounded individual.
The more he read, the more he understood that it’s important for parents to take a step back, observe their children, involve them in a daily routine, and let them develop into an individual on their own, without the need for praise or rewards.
This exercise also helped him discover motivation within himself in his late 30s. In 2022, he started sharing his learnings on parenting through his YouTube channel and Instagram under the name ‘TheCuriousParent’, with over a million following him.
Take 5 minutes a day to understand your child
Once he finished his schooling in Patiala, Harpreet pursued civil engineering from IIT Bombay. After working as a consultant for a few years, he started CoCubes with his roommate from college. Here they helped fresh graduates from Tier 2 and 3 cities find jobs in various corporations, which was often difficult.
“The arrow has left the bow and it goes in a certain direction, post which it can’t move. Even if we asked them to improve certain skills, there was something stopping them. I felt like I was wasting my time,” Harpreet shares candidly with The Better India.
After selling the company to Aon Hewitt in 2016, he spent a few years following his passion of mountaineering and running ultra marathons. However, while doing this, he missed out on spending precious time with his infant.
This left him wondering whether he was making the right choices.
“Whenever I spoke to any older person, the one regret they had was not spending enough time with their children. They always said that they never realised when their children grew up. I didn’t want to have a similar regret,” says Harpreet.
Realising the consequences of his actions, he started spending more time at home with his daughter.
Speaking about the importance of the first few years of a child’s life along with a parent’s role in it, Suman Khanna, counselling psychologist and founder, Mind Unwind, Mumbai, says that this is when they start understanding the world and environment around them.
“In the first few years of life, especially the first six months, a child doesn’t know how to ask for something. The presence of a parent to comfort them makes the child feel safe and creates a secure attachment style. This ensures that the child starts trusting his or her environment,” says Suman.
Adding to this, Harpreet says, “Parenting is not about the child, it is about the parent. Having a child gives us a window of opportunity to genuinely reflect and change ourselves.”
As Harpreet started enjoying being a hands-on father, he had a blast with his daughter. He would take her to the park, the swimming pool and just enjoyed being a parent. This allowed him to notice how other children interacted with their parents.
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Read more >“Take an example of a swimming class. Despite some children’s fear, the instructor simply throws the child in the water. But how does it impact the child? Does this adversely affect them? Why does a parent allow this? I had so many questions,” he shares.
It became clear to him that the blueprint of a well-adjusted human being is laid out in the early years.
“The first six to eight years of our lives matter the most as the first ‘AI model’ of our brain is written without our consent. Children just become what they see,” he adds emphatically.
He then started sharing his understanding of parenting on social media and why children behave a certain way. With parents leading busy lives, Harpreet wishes to help them through his five-minute videos.
‘Parents, observe from a distance’
“Children don’t come with a manual. Earlier, people would say, ‘Bacche aise hi bade ho jayenge’ (Children grow up automatically). Yes, but will they grow up properly? That is why I want parents to observe their children. Think about why they are doing what they are doing,” he says.
This approach changed Harpreet’s relationship with his daughter greatly, who spent the first two years of her life in a daycare. But after she turned three and started attending school, Harpreet made sure that all his time was spent with her. Another thing he changed was staying away from the carrot and stick approach (using rewards and punishment to encourage desired behaviour which most of us are accustomed to).
He argues that every child is inherently motivated to grow and that if we don’t need to offer them a reward to walk or talk, we don’t need to do the same for any other task.
He also reflects on whether we need to put children in so many classes and if they really enjoy them.
“We need to give our child the space to find what they like. We need to give them exposure to understand what they like. It has taken me 40 years to come to a place where I’m doing something I love. I am internally motivated today, nobody is pushing me. I’m not doing it for fame, money or external validation. I’m doing it because I love doing it,” he adds.
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Read more >Harpreet points out that we need to teach children to regulate their emotions. Hitting obviously is not the right way to do it, nor is propping them up before a screen.
“When they are 30 and angry, are they going to see a screen and pacify themselves? We should not teach children to distract themselves because you don’t want to help them process their emotions. Just because we weren’t taught this, doesn’t mean we should repeat it with the next generation,” he adds.
“When a child is watching a screen, they are not involved in anything around them. That is the core issue which leads to many mental health problems. To prevent this, we need to involve children in a daily routine doing household chores, take them outside, and build a community of friends for them to play with. The idea is to keep children involved in purposeful work which also fosters empathy,” he adds.
“Emotions can’t be replaced with mobile phones or screens,” he says.
For all parents, Harpreet offers a few basic pieces of advice:
‘Parenting is not about the child’
Besides videos on parenting, Harpreet also offers two courses, one on ‘understanding your child’ and the other on ‘how to select a school’.
“School is a preparation for life. Find a school where mistakes are allowed. There is no one special school which can make your child super successful. A school should have a loving and caring environment where children are free to learn by themselves. A child doesn’t need to be taught. Avoid a school which thinks that a child needs to be taught,” he adds.
The current education system is the remnant of the Prussian model of schooling which wanted to prepare factory workers, he says.
The curious parent states that we must find a school where a child is involved in an interactive environment filled with love and joy.
Debika Chatterji, Director Principal, JBCN International School, Borivali, explains, “It’s not about the board, it’s all about the people. Speak to the principal and teachers of the school. They should speak a language of compassion, care and follow best practices. The school should focus on holistic development of the child and must take charge of their education.”
Doing this would prevent these children from becoming adults who question their life choices at 40, he states. What this boils down to, ultimately, is whether we feel happy in our lives. If the child sees a joyful adult who feels in control of their lives, they will learn that.
“A child is born to put in the effort. They learn to walk and talk by themselves. Why then do they become lazy by the time they are 10 years old? We must have done something wrong. Find a school which focuses on a child, not on creating engineers and doctors,” he adds.
“We need to ensure that our relationship with our partner is good as well, as that is your child’s definition of love. Ensure your relationship with work is great too,” says Harpreet.
How do we raise fearless children if we are fearful ourselves, he argues? This doesn’t mean that you leave your child to do whatever they want. The idea is not to raise a consumer, but a person who has intrinsic motivation to do things. The best way to do that is by setting an example.
“It’s important for parents to walk the talk,” agrees the school director.
“I don’t want to have any regrets. I intend to live my one life to the best of my ability, and I don’t want to wish that I was doing something else. I feel joyful, which is what my daughter also sees. My mind and body are aligned,” he adds, in hopes that building a better ‘you’ will help you build a better relationship with your child and understand them.
Edited by Padmashree Pande, Images Courtesy Harpreet Grover
