Ranjit...........
Ranjit Pillai, who earned two degrees from Kerala State, was named the Fidus Solutions president in March 2006.
A native Indian, Ranjit Pillai began his career on the Lecturer of Sree Sankara College in Kerala, India, and then served as Senior Project Manager for Aryans MNC, India,Division of the Vidyadhiraja Corporation, from 2006 to 2007. He has been on the board of directors of Talent Groups, Edu Corporation. since 1999, and in 2003 was elected chairman of the board. In November 2004, Attingal Muncipal Corporation listed Talent Groups as one of the best Educational Group in , Kerala, A god's on state of India.
He earned his Masters in Computer Application and Business from Calicut University and Pondichery University in 2005 and 2007 and taught there in calicut from September 2005 to August 2006.

After earning his Masters, Ranjit Pillai spent some years as an assistant and associate professor at the University of Kerala, including a year as Head of Department of the SSV College, India.
He returned to Trivandrum to become Chairman and director of the Fidus Solutions ℗ Ltd at Technopark, India. Ranjit Pillai spent 3 of his 5 years at SIHM(Society for Information and Human Management) as Dean of Business. During his time at SIHM, he also served as Interim Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs, and was one of four finalists for the Presidency of Franchisee Education kerala in 2005.
He had Worked for GI Infologic, inc for a period of one year as
Senior Business/Strategic Consultant.
His publications include more than 10 articles, books, book reviews and refereed presentations. He has given more than 100 lectures in Different Universities around the Globe. and presented executive education courses on various topics including Use of Technology in Decision Making, Age and Boss, and IT Review.
He has also been active in community and professional service, including serving as President of the Young workers INTUC Attingal, chairman of the board of professional Careers, on the executive committee of the Overseas Congress Comitee, Houston Chapter.

Ranjit Pillai's Father is well known Politician and Social worker in South India with multitalented Personality.
His wife, Vineetha Nair, an award-winning Radiologist , is working in a Famous Hospital in USA.  

As a Parent

It is very difficult for me to talk about parenting. I have no experience. But

I can give you some ideas through observation. You have to put this into your

experience and see. If you are very orderly, children will make you chaotic.

Children are best to break your boundaries. I remember one of my uncles used to

be very strict and discipline with me and my sister very much. When he had a

son, his son started disciplining him, broke all his barriers. So, your

children teach you a lot that others may not be able to. The first thing for us

is to observe a kid, its tendencies, and the direction the kid is taking. It is

a two way journey. What do you want to learn from them? And what do you want to

teach them? Don’t try to put them through your own vision. You have to share

your vision with them and persuade them if their vision is wrong. Every child

has come to this planet with certain tendencies, certain basics which cannot be

changed. And he/she acquires certain things which can be controlled. Are you

with me? It is a big exercise. If you are a very much disciplined person, child

can create chaos in your life, and they can show you your place, make you break

your barriers. We have to be very sensitive. This is one thing that we have to

keep in our mind. If you tell children not to lie, and ask them to reply a

phone call saying you are not at home, this is simply not going to work. Having

an argument in front of your children will make it worse. If you want to have

some argument between you and your spouse, you better give your children some

job, and then fight as much as you can. But by the time they come back, you

better patch up.

We encourage the tendency in children not to give things away, and holding onto

things. When that goes beyond a certain limit, we feel suffocated. We often

tell them to keep things to themselves. Then they get this tendency of holding

back. Small actions can reflect one’s personality. It can be a hindrance to

one’s personality. At the same time we can encourage their giving and sharing

attitude, and that can develop one’s personality. So, we can do a lot in

modifying the acquired talents or personality of a kid. But you cannot do

anything with the seed that a child is born with. That will anyway come. These

two aspects we have to distinguish, and that is wisdom. And half the job is

done if you can do that. The rest half, you have to leave it to God. You have

no control on rest half. So this whole process teaches a lot of patience and

perseverance, and yet leading them to where they should be going. Giving them a

dream and persuading them to walk towards the dream is a biggest challenge in

front of parents. So, expose them to multifarious activities. This has to be

done before a child is 10 or 11. You should take the child to science, arts and

expose them to all the faculties including doing service. On one Sunday, give

them some chocolates and ask them to distribute to the poorest people. Once or

twice in an year, take them to slum and ask them to do social service. This

would enhance their personality in some unknown manner and same thing in

studies.

You have to expose them to both science and music. The left brain as well as

the right brain has to be nourished. You know, the concept of Saraswati,

Goddess of learning, is so amazing. If you look at the symbol of Saraswati,

there is a musical instrument, a book and a rosary in her hands. Book

symbolizes nourishing the left brain, the musical instrument symbolizes

nourishing the right brain and rosary symbolizes the meditative aspect. So,

knowledge, music and meditation – all three are required to make the

education complete. Then you can call someone educated and civilized. So, make

sure that children learn music and yoga. And also make sure that the children

have a scientific tempo, and they ask questions. Encourage them to ask

questions. A child starts asking questions at the age of three. Then on they

keep asking questions. Many times, they come up with questions of which you

have no answer. How many parents have this experience? They make you wonder.

They make you ponder on reality which is stunning. So, it is very necessary for

them to inculcate both music and scientific tempo.

Then see the personality of your child. See that they interact with various age

groups. How do they interact with little ones? How do they interact with the

ones who are older to them? How do they interact with someone of their own age

group? This is something very important. You can understand with this whether

they are developing any superiority or inferiority complex, or if they are

becoming introvert or extrovert. And you can play a very important role here.

Play some games with them, and encourage them to interact with all the age

groups, and we can mold their personality to a very central, talented and

flexible human being, to a personality which is free of complexes. Children who

have inferiority complex would like to interact more with the younger ones and

would try to run away from elder ones and even try to avoid their equals.

People with superiority complex try to shun the younger ones, and would only

want to relate to the older ones. They are not good communicators in either

case. As parents, you can teach them communication skills. It is very important

for them to learn how to communicate.

I want you to do an exercise. Tell to the person sitting next to you, “I

don’t trust you”. This is a chance to say it if it is your spouse

(Jokingly)! (After some period of time when audience couldn’t do it even

after being asked upon two – three times) You cannot do it seriously. See how

difficult it is to tell someone that you don’t trust him/her. It is difficult

to tell someone that you trust him/her. But it is even more difficult to tell

someone that you don’t trust him/her. Did you get it? Did you notice you did

something that you never did before? You told someone that you don’t trust

him/her and you start smiling. Has this ever happened to you before? Children

have a trusting tendency by nature. But somehow their trust is broken. We need

to look into that. Do they trust themselves? Do they have enough confidence in

themselves? A healthy child has three kinds of trust.

A healthy child will have three kinds of trust - Trust in the divinity, trust

in the goodness of people and trust in one self. A healthy child will not think

that everybody is a thief or everybody is bad. He/ She doesn’t get into this

sort of paranoia. A healthy child knows that people are good. A healthy child

has trust in himself/ herself and trust in the unseen power of God, Divinity,

some higher power. These three types of trusts can make a child genius .These

are the ingredients to make a very talented and genius child. To nurture them,

we need to bring about these tendencies in them.

If you keep telling children that everyone is a cheat, the child loses its

trust in the people around and the society in general. Their personality,

talents and communication skills will shrink. Their interaction with people

will suffer a great deal. They become unsuccessful business persons,

unsuccessful professionals and unsuccessful artists. They may have talents but

this is the result you will get if trust in people and in the goodness of

things as they are is taken away. Today, you have many young people who want to

be entrepreneurs, but they are not successful. You know why? This is the

reason. They don’t trust in the goodness of people nor do they trust in

themselves. As parents we have to build these things in a child. Do you

encourage if they come to you with complaints? What do you do? Do you

encourage the negativity? Or you mould it to something positive. You have to

play a balanced role.

Sometimes your child comes to you and says so and so is so good, and you know

that that friend of your son/ daughter is not so good. Here you have to point

out their mistakes and bring them to the center line sometimes. They get swayed

away by somebody and you know their habits are not so good, then you have to

tell the negative things. But if they are telling you negative things about

somebody, then you have to point out the positive. So, you have to have a

balancing act whenever a child swings too much to the left or too much to the

right. Do you agree with me? We create an atmosphere around us. If we create an

atmosphere of trust and children grow in that atmosphere, they become

brilliant. But, if we create an atmosphere of negativity, distrust, or

dejection, they are going to reflect and bounce the same thing on us. Having

come here today, I want to give you an exercise to do which I want you to do

every day. When you come back from work and meet your children, the first thing

you do is clap with them, or play, or laugh. It may look little artificial for

one or two days. But later on, it will become a breakthrough for you and your

kids. Sit and have food with the whole family, as much as possible, at least 3

to 4 times a week. And while having food, don’t tell them they are bad. While

serving them food, don’t put down their moods. There is a time to tell them

when they are wrong, never on the dining table.

Close your eyes for 30 seconds. Just suppose that everyone is telling you that

they don’t trust you. Think no one trusts you. How do you feel?(After 30

seconds) Open your eyes. Bad, sad, unhappy! You know this is the atmosphere we

create- ‘I don’t trust you, I don’t trust you’ .It is an effort to

create an healthy atmosphere, I understand because your life is not only your

own children. You have so many other things; you have to interact with so many

other people. When you have no control over your own moods, it is difficult to

make a mood or create an atmosphere just for the sake of children. But we need

to make an effort. So, let us quickly go over once again. Have dinner with the

kids atleast 3-4 times in a week. And when you are having food, don’t point

out their mistakes or blame them. See that their mood is uplifted. See that

their personality is developed such that they don’t feel the generation gap.

They interact with elders as well as youngsters. Give them some responsibility

of youngsters and sometimes some responsibility to do something for older ones

by which you can bridge their generation gap.

Make sure that they have little bit of both science and arts. If you find your

child is too much oriented towards music and arts and doesn’t care for

science, then you put in little effort to take them to science museum or make

them do some mathematics. Encourage them a little bit towards science. If they

are too much into science and mathematics, give from musical side as well. It

is not difficult to put them on musical side, because they always have musical

or artistic side to them. But especially boys, you will have to encourage them

a little more .Girls naturally have an inclination towards arts.

Engage them in some project where they are contributing, they are giving rather

than acquiring or possessing. We need to do something to inculcate this

tendency in children. Just small things, it doesn’t have to be anything big.

See that they have three types of trust. Trust in the goodness of people. Tell

them the stories or good happenings in the world not just only the negative

things. Trust in themselves, encourage them. Sometimes they say, “I can’t

do it”. Encourage them and tell them that they can do it. And then trust in

the goodness in the society. If they grow up with the feeling of mistrust or

fear, there will be paranoia. Their personality will start shrinking, they can

never blossom, they can never be good communicators in the society. Trust the

society and trust in divinity. A little bit of ritual is essential to create an

atmosphere for children. Make them sit and do some chanting. Ask them to light

a candle a lamp, some little bit of ritual is good for them to hold on. Make

them to break a coconut or go to temple. It is important to root a little bit

of sanskara about something that is supernatural. Don’t you think it is

necessary? A faith in the unknown can take them a long way. Not too much,

though, just a little bit. Make them read a few shalokas. These things will

develop their personality.

When children are very positive about their friends, give them a little

caution, but not too much. If they are very negative about some friends, show

that that there is something positive coming out there also. In this way, you

are pushing them to the center, not letting them fall on either side.

Learn from them. Don’t always stand up as a teacher. But participate with

them and learn from them

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Ranjit PM, Houston, ranjitpm@ymail.com