Don’t punish your little daughter...

“We were not like this when we were young. Nowadays children are very different”.

This is something we hear very often from today’s parents. What really has changed? Is it our children? Or is it the society around them? Let us take a moment to consider this.

Parents try their best to feed their children, give them a proper education, and to bring them up in a happy environment. But the biggest responsibility of parents is to bring up their child to be a responsible, useful citizen to society.

The guides who can create the suitable environment for this process are the parents and elders who constantly spend time with the child. Today’s audio visual media, especially the television, radio and newspapers have a tendency to focus on various issues like abuse, harassment and other various traumatic problems faced by children.

Some of these instances even border on the inhuman. As a negative result of commercialization we seem to be distancing ourselves daily from values like kindness, compassion, generosity, and humaneness.

Should we complacently wait until society fals into a precipice of corruption, devoid of morals? Or should we concentrate on even a small good deed to make a change for the better? Most of us, as adults have the ability to differentiate between good and bad. Children need our help until they become adults themselves.

Professor Piyanjalee de Soyza, with the information and knowledge gained through a number of researches and child psychological analysis made over a long period of time, explains the ways to raise a child to become a responsible and productive citizen of the country.

According to modern methodologies and surveys, there are a number of activities by adults that has a direct influence on a child’s personality. The most important of these activities are discussed in this article.

- Instilling good discipline in a child - Ways to have a conversation with the child - How to praise the child - How suitable is punishing a constantly disobedient child? -Is it proper to categorize the child according to gender? Let us consider the above points and think for a moment what we can do as adults to gift a good child to society.

Most of our parents resort to physical punishment when a child is disobedient. They think that punishment would prevent the child from being disobedient. But each child is unique. Even identical twins have differences among themselves.

Example is better than advice- is an old saying. Most children imitate the actions of their parents and elders. Because of this we should always try to set an example to them with our actions. If you want to raise a generous child, be generous in front of him.

Encourage him to participate in such activities. If you want your child to use good expressions like ‘thank you’ and ‘sorry’, make sure that you use those expressions in front of your child. Then your child will learn to use them effortlessly.

We all like to get other people’s attention. Children use various tricks like crying, screaming and rolling on the ground, to get the attention of adults. These actions put parents in a difficult situation.

They get agitated not knowing how to pacify the child. Not wanting to be embarrassed in front of others by the behaviour of the child, they quickly give in to the child’s demand. The child who wins all his demands by scaring his parents like this will grow up and learn to get everything through force as an adult.

What can we, as adults, do to change this. When the child throws a tantrum to get your attention, just ignore it and continue with your work. Even scolding him would be a manner of paying attention to him.

So, refrain from doing that. When he does not get any reaction from you, the child will gradually learn to change his behaviour and the way he thinks. But before you try to discipline your child in this manner, you have to decide how consistent you can be in your actions.

If the child is trying to get our attention by showing that he is going to burn himself or that he is going to jump in front of a moving vehicle, we cannot wait with our eyes and ears closed. But we have to make sure that we do not let our children get used to winning their demands through unwanted tantrums.

The most important thing to remember is that we should be quick and unhesitant with our praise whenever our child deserves to be praised. If the child asks for something he sees at the supermarket without throwing a tantrum, try to buy it for him if you can afford it as a reward for something good that he did or for one of his achievements. Make it a habit to praise the child in front of others.

Wouldn’t it be wonderful to see the child change from winning his demands by throwing tantrums, to winning praise through good deeds and achievements? Everything has a limit. But it does not mean that a child’s creativity and activeness should be restricted unnecessarily.

It is important to provide the child with specific times and places to play, to study and to eat. When the child understands his limits and learns to work according to those limits, he does not have to face unnecessary disappointments and unhappiness.

Explain to the child about the time of day that he should play. If you realise that your child likes, and tries to play at night, it is your responsibility to explain gently to him that it is not a suitable time to play. You can avoid unwanted accidents and trouble by allocating a specific play area for the child.

Another very important thing is to make sure that your child has suitable playmates. It is also very important to make sure that you child does not play with things that could be dangerous like fire and weapons.

A special tool to asses the good behaviour of children below 10 years of age is the Assessment Chart. This should be displayed in a prominent place in the house for everybody to see.

A shiny star or a smiley face could be pasted on this chart to acknowledge this child’s good behaviour like helping with the house work, doing his lessons well in school, not fighting with his siblings, and any other achievement.

The child should be given the opportunity to paste or draw the star or the smiley face on the chart. This would make the child proud of himself and improve his self confidence which would result in motivating him to do more good deeds in order to win more praise.

It is important to be tactful when trying to discipline a disobedient child. The child’s age, physical health, state of mind, and other environmental aspects should be taken into consideration before punishing a child.

If the child does not listen to your advice and continues to be disobedient, a good punishment is to select a specific corner and to make him stay in that place alone for about 15 to 30 minutes. Or you can give him a simple task that he does not like to do, like removing weeds in the garden, or cleaning the staircase.

Here the child will realise that being disobedient would definitely bring him this punishment; and that he can avoid the punishment by being obedient. But you should not use the same punishment for his every act of disobedience. Then the child would become indifferent towards that punishment.

There are several points that parents and adults should keep in mind when disciplining children: The mother and the father should use the same method when disciplining the child especially when there are a number of adults in the house, decisions about disciplining the child should be taken after a collective discussion.

If the mother, grand-mother and the aunt uses different punishments for the same act of disobedience, it would confuse the child. This would result in the child becoming more aggressive.

Never lie to the child. Do not make unreasonable threats. If you jump out of the window again, I will break your legs! If I catch you stealing again, I will cut off your hands! You would have said things like this in distress over your child’s actions. But you will never cut off your child’s hands or legs. Be careful not to say things that would break your child’s trust in you.

Always be patient in front of your child.

You should never discuss your child’s failures or disobedience with other children or adults in front of your child. When your child comes home from school and gets ready to do his homework, it is not at all suitable to look at the mistakes he has made with his lessons and scold him saying that he is stupid and unintelligent. Find out his weak points and help him to improve himself. Be a strength to your child.

When the child has a problem, don’t make the situation unpleasant by jumping into conclusions without listening to the child first. Try to solve the problem together by talking with the child and understanding the real situation. If the child has only two uniforms to wear to school and he is asking for another uniform; and if you are unable to give it to him, try to explain the reason to him gently.

Teach your child to use the uniforms that he has carefully until you are able to buy him a new uniform.

When you ask your child to do something, make it a suggestion rather than an order.Without ordering you daughter to “make sure you have a bath before going to school”, you can suggest “if you have a bath before going to school, even your friends would say that you smell nice”. This will make the child get used to good habits quite effortlessly.

It is not good to always categorise elder brother, younger sister, younger brother and elder sister. When they help in cleaning the house, assign duties to them without differentiating between their genders. Acting without focusing on gender differences when providing food and security to your children would prevent a lot of problems that could arise in the future. It is very important to treat your children equally without differentiating as boys and girls.

Make it a point to be close to your children and talk to them. Let them realise that you love them. That will create a bond between you and you child which will not break even after he becomes an adult.

“I cannot bear to think that you are travelling on the foot board of the bus” I feel very upset even to see a small wound on you”. When the feeling from the depth of your heart are turned into words like this, you child will get even closer to you. It is very important to be disciplined and responsible as parents and adults in front of our children.

Children always imitate the actions of people who are close to them. Their actions as adults are also based on their childhood experiences.Your child needs your love and affection throughout his life.

If he seeks affection from outsiders, it maybe because he does not get the love, protection and trust that he needs from you. It would be important to keep the points discussed today in mind in order to raise the child you brought into this world through a lot of sacrifice and pain, into an honest and responsible citizen.

Article written by: Nadee Dissanayake based on an interview with Professor Piyanjalee de Soyza, Senior Lecturer, Faculty of Medicine, University of Colombo Translated by: Gayathri Jayasooriya.