“Mumma
am I supposed to wash dishes? Isn’t it work for girls? Why is Nishi
not doing it?”, shouted Ravi. Nishi and Ravi were children of
Savita. She was a single mother and was efficiently raising her kids.
Nishi was older than Ravi, but he scarcely respected her. With the
growing tension in society and immoral activities in surroundings,
Ravi got influenced entirely. He started undervaluing girls and
thought that they are less powerful and capable. He started
differentiating among Boys duties and Girls duties. 

Savita
used to see Nishi crying because of Ravi’s lousy behaviour. She was
much tensed of how to teach Ravi that girls and boys are equal, and
both of them deserve to be treated well. There is no one superior to
the other; in fact, both are at par in terms of capabilities and
value. It was becoming difficult to deal with Ravi.

We
all are aware of gender equality and are witnesses of eve-teasing and
crimes against women. We must teach our kids to acknowledge gender
equality. As a parent, you also must have come across such a
situation. You must have tried to counsel your kids, taught them
lessons and might have punished them at their wrongdoings. But at
times these tactics won’t work. 

In
this article, we’ll tell you about five innovative ways as to how
to teach your kids equality.

Household

It
is a common practice that we ask our girls to do households,
especially cooking and cleaning. There are some homes where men don’t
enter into the kitchen. We have to break this rule. Make your kids
understand that both girls and boys need to learn household for
survival. Make your boys that males are a chef too. 

Only
activities that you can do are to ask them to cook their meal, wash
their clothes by themselves and clean their room. This is how they’ll
become self-reliant and will understand that household is not
subjected to any gender and needs to be done by everyone.

Sex
Education

Open
the gates for a talk on sex. Ask your kids what they think about it.
Make sure it’s a person lecture with both of them. Know their
preferences. It might happen that their choices are not what you
thought. Research yourself about things and break all the
stereotypes. 

After
this teach them about another gender, their issues regarding sex.
Menstruation is something that both should be taught. Ask your sons
to comfort the girls they know who are going through those days. Pads
are not taboo for boys.

Know
the cause

You
might not know the cause of your child’s odd behaviour. It’s
essential to eradicate the source of gender inequality. Ask them from
they learned all this. You might get to know whether it was their
friends or the Internet that influenced their thinking. It might not
be an easy task. You’ll have to keep an eye on their activities.
See how they treat other girls or boys in their contact, what do they
discuss among their peers, what do they browse on the Internet. I
know its hefty task, but once you find out the root cause, you can
easily change their mind by resolving things.

Books

Use
the Internet; always educate yourself and your child. Give a Books
that teach diversity, as also stories for children by authors like
Premchand, Tagore and R K Narayanhistorical perspective
of society as it was in India. Discussions triggered can easily
emphasise on equality and respect towards all. Victory Song by Chitra
Banerjee Divakaruni is the story of a 12-year-old girl, Neela, on the
background of India’s struggle for independence. It triggered many
questions about the restrictions that Neela had to face and overcome
as a young girl. What you might not be able to do, books may.

Practice
what you preach

According
to writer and queer feminist Shals Mahajan, the process of
sensitising adults and children about gender needs to be done
simultaneously. To begin with, parents need to practise gender
equality at home, even before educating their children. “I think
that when children see gender playing out so rigidly in their home
and other environments, they too begin to imbibe some of the same
values and ideas. So it is never enough to say that there is
equality, that there is no difference between boys and girls that
they can do what they want. It is important actually to live like
that. And that to me seems like the most difficult thing for people
to do, because that means looking at your own life and way of living
and seeing how gender and other hierarchies work within. It means
looking at how as adults we interact with each other, whose work is
valued more, who makes the decisions, who has more power, who is
allowed to get away with anger, the way people speak to each
other-these small and big things that are part of our daily living,”
she told Express Parenting.

A
parent can have his way of teaching equality, but remember empathy
and sensitivity are the tools that will break the toughest obstacle
in the path. The issue is grieve and needs to be dealt with utmost
care so don’t try to scold your child in the name of teaching.
Gender equality is a must and has to be incorporated from the growing
years.

Happy
parenting!

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