Those child psychology tips online can
sometimes lead you to misunderstand your kids’ psychological capacity. Some may
work on older kids, like when they are thirty, not certainly on my bundle of
joy, who is just seven (pun is intended). One such advice that I took very
seriously was, 'how to make
your kid do what you want her to...' like
brush teeth, bathe, eat, play and sleep, in time.... Did I hear you all laugh
at me? The LOL is loud and clear! So you know all about it... I seem to have
just called out the elephant in the room. I can imagine some moms, with sore
throat from calling out their kid all day, becoming really interested in this
post... Oh I will hide nothing, this blog is just for you.
I read this about a month back, that if
you want your seven year old to do what you think she should be doing... while
she firmly thinks that dressing and undressing Barbie, making paper boats,
drawing lines on paper, making art work out of little twigs, reading Geronimo
Stilton is what she was born to do, everything else must and should be done by
her boring and completely under informed parents, including feeding her after
having found her mouth open, whenever she feels like it!... The post said that
you should keep repeating the instruction, once every few seconds, mind you
calmly and firmly, like a robot. It’s not like you lose your cool once in a
while and say hey kiddo enough okay... I have said it a thousand times, now I
am hiding your toy, feeding your book to the dog and such mild threats, with
gentle rap at her butt etc... On the contrary, you should strictly stick to
using words and clear short instructions, no ire and anger please. For example
don't keep saying, "Go brush your teeth, change your clothes, brush your
hair, clean your room, pack your bag and go to sleep…” every few seconds. Don't
say that for God's sake, think about your lung capacity and her unique
capability to completely filter out 'Parent voices'!
Tell her gently one thing at a time, 'Go
brush your teeth'. It is believed that after seven to eight repetition, she
will listen and also do what she is asked to do. Hmmm I immediately shared this
with my husband, with a victorious smile. I thought I had nailed it, generations of mother can benefit from it. One
look at that incredulous smile on his face was enough to tell me, he was
doubting it… The combined knowledge of all psychologist community and my
mother's instinct. Or maybe he just knew my daughter's inability to empathise
with the psychological breakthroughs in a quest to make kids more manageable
and therefore more lovable. I put it to test none-the-less, left alone in my
quest by my better half, the man who swore to be by my side in good and in bad.
How easily water flows over that rickety contract! Just kidding!
I tried and here is what happened... I
told my daughter, 'Chiku go and brush your teeth!' firm and clear, after dinner
on a school night, when my BP begins to play up, worrying if she did not have
enough sleep she will fall sick etc etc.. Everyone in my house and any eavesdropping
neighbour would easily hear what I said. (Please Note: My neighbours are all wonderful people, no
one eavesdrops, and this is just on a jocular vein, each one of my neighbours
are my pillar of support).
Chiku was busy, something really important
had come up. Probably it was the shoe of a Barbie doll, the size of a large
mosquito or a flipper of a diver from her Lego set, about the same size or
smaller, that was not to be found and had to be found immediately. She did what
she does to 'parent voices', she filtered it. I repeated again and again
and again, maybe seventeen times or maybe twenty two, much to my husband's
amusement. And then the purported miracle did happen. She got up, yelled that
she is going and she went to brush her teeth. Very soon she was back at whatever
she thought was important and now my next short instruction to her was, please
change into night dress. After about six times I realised that, if I was ever
sending her to school the next day, some desperate measures were needed...
Jokes apart, yes, it is difficult to make
kids understand the value of time, to comply with rules, to finish up their
tasks, to clean up their room, to get into bath, to come home from play, to eat
all their grains, pulses, vegetables and fruits, if you are not already in a
panic anxiety after reading all this, there is more to it. I read this
somewhere, 'the choice is yours, whether
you want compliant kids or confident ones' looks like, the twain does not meet!
Dear Readers: This article is just on a
jocular vein. It is not intended to question the psychology profession to which
I am indebted to the core. Please also read my blogs ‘Our Little Chatterboxes’ and
‘It’s Okay to Cry’
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