How are we teaching our young ones?

Kids bring joys to our lives. They dispel the emptiness and bring new meanings to our lives.

While the best thing we can ever provide is love, best gift we can ever give is not material but something that prepares the young ones for their future and benefits them for many years to come. That gift is called education. Not in terms of academic learning but the education of the mind and character.

How many times did you scream at your kids when they did mistakes and how many times did you jump at them for being mischievous? Can you count the number of times you were angry in a day because of the behaviors of your kids?

Emotion directed at a particular person is a cultivated habit. If you ever find a justification to be angry with someone, you will find it very easy to be angry with the same person the second time, and it became a nature on the third occasion, and so and on and on. Soon, before you realized each of your anger automatically escalates to violence.

What is the implication? We are teaching our kids ANGER, and showing them that violence is justified by anger. We are teaching them to react instead of respond to situations with our immediate reaction to their mistakes. We are telling them that each time they feel angry they should not restraint that anger but let it be fully blown out.

Kids are always looking for example to follow, particularly what they should do in various situations. They will continue to look up to adults for clues as long as they have not developed the ability to think and rationalize independently, and sometimes it might be too late if they had already developed the habits of certain emotions and behaviors.

How many times did you lied to your kids that if they do not behave you will send them away to the beggars on the street, if they don’t go to bed now the monster will come and eat them up, and there are ghosts in the dark room, etc? How many times have you threatened to lock up your kids in a dark room, spread chili on their lips, or beat them up if they don’t do what you say? What are you doing here? You teach them FEAR. And succumb to the demand of authority without the need for justification.

That however does not imply that appropriate punishment is forbidden. I am only bringing out your awareness on your behaviors and its implications on the minds of the young ones.

Are you using more punishment than persuasion on your kids? Did you bother to explain the reasons why they should act or not act in a certain way? Yes, you did explain, but how many times did you bother to repeat the explanation and enforce the messages with words instead of losing your temper and say the usual “How many times have I told you….” followed by harsh words and physical punishment?

A young kid is often analogous to a piece of plain white paper. It depends on what we want to draw on it. Putting aside various beliefs, every kid is born with unique personality, disposition and predominant emotions. We should not bring out, develop and enforce the habits of their negative emotions. Teach them what we wanted to be taught and the way we wanted it to be taught. We do not have to follow the way we were taught and how we were taught.

Remember one thing, patience comes from love. Anger arises from your own ego.