Discipline

I generally say that Kota is a Mecca & Madina for those who want to study and Las Vegas for who don’t want to study. Discipline is key element in student’s success and ineffective supervision or indiscipline can spoil the child’s progress.

I recently met with a parent who has left his son to study in Kota. Father was a professor in Bihar at one of the commerce college. His son was quite good in studies; he left his son alone at Kota in class 9th for studies. Every thing was ok for some time, however soon Amar got distracted and became less regular in the studies, started telling lies to his father about studies. The parent didn’t have time to come Kota and check what was going on here and Amar took full advantage of this. As a result of this he started lagging in studies. In between because of his regular absenteeism and poor performance we called his father many a time but no response from his side. Entire academic session passed but no body took notice of this.

Amar took admission in class 10h also at Kota in the month of April. I never knew about this student, only in the month of August his father came to meet me. What his father told me about his son is an eye opening story for all the parents, students, educators. Amar took re admission in class 10th but hardly came to coaching till August. He came initially for 3 days only there after he stopped coming. We have the system of calling parents if the student misses classes even on 2 consecutive days. But in the April month only he submitted an application signed (forged) by his father about change of mobile. So he made us change his father’s mobile number in our records. We used to send SMS to this changed mobile no. which belonged to his friend only. Even our calls by attended his friend who pretended as a parent.

In between his father also got suspicious because he was not getting any info from us. He called at our coaching many a times and every time he was told that Amar is doing well. So Amar fabricated even our no. however professor sahib has a gut feeling that there is some thing so he took a week long vacation during the month of August and came to meet him in Kota without informing him. Amar was shocked to see his father. His father wanted to visit coaching to know the progress of Amar but Amar told him that some renovation work is going in building and he connected his father to manager of coaching to confirm. Still his father insisted for visiting the old coaching after seeing that now nothing is left for him he fell into legs of his father and accepted and shared with him everything. Professor brought Amar to my office and narrated me the entire story. Toward the end of story I could see tears in his eyes.

In between five months when he didn’t go to either school or coaching what he did was difficult to imagine. He got into wrong habits of smoking and drinking and developed a friend circle of similar taste. Lacked so much in academics that it was mammoth task to put him on track.

Expecting a self inflicted discipline of motivation from such a student will be foolishness. He was on the path of devastation. I suggested professor to take his son back or send her mother to live with him.

The point which I am trying to bring out is that monitoring and checking is an essential part of child upbringing. A growing child requires motivation, support, course correction, scolding on regular basis. If the child is left upon to choose by itself in all probability that it is going to be spoiled. Amar who was above average in his studies came to position where it became difficult for him to even pass the exam and make a decent living for himself.

Professor sahib was very happy before he came to Kota assuming that Amar was doing well in the studies. His friends, relatives in Bihar were told the same thing. It was difficult for him to fathom what Amar was doing all these days in Kota.

In the previous post I also shared the story of Auto driver who was instrumental in sending both his sons to IITs despite his limited means that was the result of effective monitoring.

This story should not make you to conclude that effective parenting and supervision can happen only when kids are with parent. I have come across hundreds of cases where despite parents and kids staying together. These kids have become more or less like Amar only.