Ask Uncle Pai — Why do elders keep scolding us?

Why do elders scold us?
Ketaki Soparkar, Navi Mumbai

Elders often scold you because they want you to excel in your field. They often wish to fulfil their dreams through their children. They want to protect you which is why they don’t want you to make mistakes.

Often youngsters rebel against discipline. Time is a precious resource and your parents insist on spending it wisely. This is one area where parents are often right and the children wrong.

When parents tell you what to do and what not to, they actually mean to do good to you. But the parents too must treat their children with due respect. If they are permitted to think for themselves, it would make them more confident. Instead of compelling children, Parents must understand their views. They should treat children as adults. Parents should not try to fulfil their dreams through their children. Rather, they should try to find out what the child is good at and encourage him/her to go ahead with it.The most common mistake many parents commit is that they tell the child that he/she has not come up to their expectations by not standing first in the class or by not winning a debate or game. This hurts the self-esteem of the child. On the other hand, if the parents support the self-esteem of the child even when he performs badly, the child can always excel in some field or the other, if not in academics.

When a missile is launched, why is the counting done backwards?
–Kaushal D Mehta, Girgaum

The countdown was first used in a German movie in 1928, to create a dramatic effect. When experiments with space rockets began, the scientists found countdown to be a useful way of checking before the final firing.