Eh, you are the best!

It is silly to compare your child with anyone else. Well, I realised it was only a thought and I was not practising it really.

I've told Ponnu that no matter who gets what to class by way of a better eraser or pencil, she was not to come home and ask for it. "You don't compare yourself with others. There are some things that I can afford to buy and some that I won't buy just because you want to have it, when there is no need for it." So the message was clear: No comparisons.

Yet, when the exam results were out, I'd ask, so how much did X or Y score? The answer would come pat. "Don't compare, Ma. You only said so." To compare is a habit that gets callused over the years, difficult to get off.

I believe it is most easy to infuse confidence in one's child and get her to do what she fears by simply encouraging her to believe she is the best. Ponnu's class had many toppers and though Ponnu was not a topper, she was among the best students in class.

In the final year in school, it was time for the Head Girl to be chosen. Ponnu wondered whether she should join the race. I said, go for it. "But I am not among the toppers who stand a better chance," she said. I said, "Don't let that bother you. Just go for it."

Then began preparations at home with mock sessions where I alternated from being the Principal to the Science teacher or the English teacher, all of them would be on the panel, and fire questions at Ponnu. I coached her from how to knock and enter the Principal's room (though she knew it, but no harm in repeating it again, I reckoned) to maintaining eye contact with the panel while answering, to be confident and say why Ponnu thought she was eligible for the post; the drill was on. The initial apprehensions of there being `toppers' in there vying for the post petered down as the days went by and I asked her to block it all off. On the day of the `interview', I was expectedly more nervous.

I waited anxiously for Ponnu's arrival back from school. Even with all the coaching, the result was a surprise to me. When Ponnu called up and said, "the results are out," I was quiet and said, ok. Then she said softly, "I have been chosen to be the head girl." Hearing that, I could not stop myself from shouting into the phone, "What?"

When I came home from work, Ponnu and I had a hearty laugh when I heard about the interview. Ponnu is an avid reader. Harry Potter is one of her favorite books. When the school panel asked her questions ranging from her ambition in life to what she wanted to do as a Head Girl, the best queston came last from the English teacher. "Do you read," she asked at which Ponnu said yes. The funniest question to us was, "Have you read Harry Potter?" To that Ponnu was able to talk without pause about the book and its author.

To be chosen the Head Girl was an interesting lesson for Ponnu. No matter who was in the ring, Ponnu had every chance of winning when she believed in herself. To me that was important. Every step that my child took and succeeded in going further, I was able to let go of my anxieties about her.