MAGIC WORKS!
What happens when your child does not understand the importance of discipline? You may be worried that if you begin to give incentives to get things done then you could be sending a wrong message of the ‘what’s there in it for me’ kind.
Often parents are troubled when their words of advice fall on deaf ears. Experience though must have taught you that force often fails to achieve results.
For example, you may want her to:
- Hit the bed sharp at nine p.m.
- Drink a cup of milk every morning.
- Keep her shoes in place when she comes back home from the garden.
- Brush her teeth every night.
And the list could go on; but she retaliates with a tantrum show. You can’t understand why such simple things are made into big issues.
Here, I would like to make use of a short story to explain better. The story goes as such:
There is a house in which two children are fast asleep. The entrance of the house, which is the only entry and exit space, has caught fire. The father wants to save his children from harm and so he calls out to them to run out fast. The children however are so deep in sleep that they do not even catch his words. The father runs to shake them up and urges them to run to safety. This time, the children open their eyes; hear him, but turn away to continue to sleep. Now the father is so frantic, that he pulls them out of the bed and tells them that there is a magician down in the building; showing other children the most magnificent magic they could have ever seen. The children now jump straight out of the bed; their sleep having taken wings, and run to meet the magician. The father runs after them and all three are saved from getting burnt.
In our lives too, we need to at times introduce magicians to awaken our adamant children. The magic tricks could be as simple as:
- A small gift if the task aimed at is achieved or
- A promise of something big, like may be a holiday plan in the near future; provided the task gets performed on a regular basis.
But beware that this pattern does not become a habit. It is just to set things rolling till the task you desire becomes a habit with the understanding of its goodness.
A little magic is all you need. You certainly can’t have a magic show going on round the clock. Let your child gradually become aware that some things have to be done not with the greed of incentives but as responsibilities.
So there you go! You will soon have amazing magic moments in your lives and wonder what a gem of a child you have raised.
— Ruby Malshe —
She is a lecturer in a Mumbai college. And has written a novel, a book of short stories and a book of poems. She also has a blog ‘Thoughtful Whispers’ where she regularly posts matters of general and spiritual interest which need attention. Ruby is also a motivational speaker and talks on different issues about women, life and children.