I want to help all those eager parents on the net to help their child to greater knowledge and happiness:
Treat you kid as your own age. Rather you turn to your kids age when talking to him. Know his thoughts, know his needs, know his language, and know his likes and dislikes. You will start communicating to him using the Pokemons and Digimons.
Create a peaceful environment: a Home is a sweet one so long as there is peace and for peace tolerance is a must. So for creating a peaceful environment, you should tolerate your child. And as a child is wont to mischief, you must rationalize and make the child understand that why mischief is not good if it extends a certain limit. Set your norms for limits and mischief. In fact indulge yourself in mischief too. This way you will create a peaceful and happy picture in your child’s mind.
Do not let fear grow in your child: Let your child face up any calamity. Fear is only natural for a child. But ensure that the child thinks for himself about the fear and dissipates it. Help the child understand and explain everything and patiently so that the child never will again quiver in fear.
I remember once I met with a serious accident. My son looked at me and started crying. My faced was badly bandaged and I looked ghastly. My wife was also crying. I laughed and said, come here, want to see how bad this is. He was afraid to come near me. I indulged and he came. I took off my bandage and showed him the wound. The stitches soon drew his attention and simultaneously his fear was gone, his curiosity reigned. That is when I started explaining things to him, how the accident occurred, how I was taken to the hospital, how the doctors treated me and how I cam back home. The entire story took about 15 minutes and he listened patiently and after that I told him, now do you think this is bad. God saved me from the worse. I could have died. Immediately, he prayed to god thanking him for saving my life. And consoled my wife, ‘now stop crying, god has saved my father.’
Do not ever make your child do what he doesn’t want to do: whole heartedly if he does he will do it the best. Convince him why he should be doing it. He will if he is sure what he is doing. Like learning is a fantastic experience. Provide him with interesting and fun filled reasons. Make him want to learn even before you say son, start studying. I will tell you how - Set targets. No lures. Remember. NO LURES. It will wake the Satan. So, no lures, just simple motivational trick. Set challenges not difficult, just achievable ones. Like write this lesson in 20 minutes. You will be surprised to find that if he takes 1 hour to write, he will do it for you in 15 if you just ask him to do it in 20 minutes and attaching funny consequences like saying ‘your mom will beat me’ or ‘your teacher will make me stand up on the bench’ something that he can easily relate to and know it is funny. This way you can end up with daily targets - finish off history, Math, science or anything. You can review it weekly. But make it a habit. If you are lax, don’t expect your kid to live up to your system. You must follow every move, every thing he does. Otherwise it is a waste of time and effort and will not help your kid get anywhere.
Make your child distinguish between good and bad: This ability will help in his life always. How can you make a simple understand the complexity of good and bad? There is a good way of starting is the cause and effect theory. You can let the child expose or experience it. Then analyze the cause and effect basis of the good and the bad aspect of anything. This way the child learns to understand both the cause and the effect.
Don’t shout, don’t panic, and don’t make him feel that earth has fallen or worst: Just reason things out to your child. He is after all a child. And children are wont to mischief. So don’t panic or shout or bring the roof down because your son broke something or destroyed something. You know it could be fixed or replaced. So don’t get mad on him. Make him understand. I will relate a personal experience with my son. My son is mischievous and plays with the remote control. I had told him to stop playing otherwise it would stop working. Soon it so happened that he dropped it and it went dead. My son came to me and told me that it did not work. Because I observe him closely, I found him hiding his face slyly. I asked him if he had dropped it without raising my voice but looking seriously. He could not but come out with the truth. I then opened the screws from the remote, showed him where the damage was done and explained to him why it had stopped functioning. His flurry of questions later, I now find him handling remotes and mobiles with tender care.
Humor your child: Always makes learning a painless, happy experience. Teach your kid to learn but without any punishments. Punishments are for criminals. Not your child. He is your god and love. So treat him so. By humor. Make funny references. Call up the cartoon characters he watches and likes the most and relate with examples that would make him laugh and when he laughs he would sure remember to tell him friends and this way he not only learns, but also wins friends. Always keep small room for gags and wits for him so that he yearns for them and learns faster than you could with a stick or a cane in your hand. Remember you cannot force a child to learn, and that which is learnt with a cane is worst learnt. Laugh with the child and make it a habit. A smile costs nothing but earns more than anything.
Respect your child as you expect him to respect you. Child is a human being, with its own environment, personal spaces and boundaries to keep. Respect them. You should not force your child to do anything that you would not expect anybody to force you to do. This way your child will grow independently without support and in the long run, will be able to endure the competition in the future.
Be your Childs best friend: My son is my best friend. I tell him my woes in simple terms and he responds to me with a don’t worry be happy attitude. He would console me, he would support me, and he is everything that I look for in a friend. And so does he. How did I do this? Simple, I treat him as my own. I understand his needs, I know his tricks and thought process, I anticipate his moves and because I also watch some of his cartoons, he feels that I am his best friend. But I also ensure that he is not cut off from reality. Children of his age should be his friends. So at school, I indulge with witticism with his classmates. Joke with them. Humor them. Make them all feel that my son has the best father and they respond to this. He becomes a role model in class. And he likes it. So he respects me. This mutual respect makes us best friends. He calls me bestest father. I call him bestest son. And this is what all we care and live for. His future, his betterment. Our life in toil for them.
Remember not to make him feel guilty. Make him understand his mistakes. By doing so, you will make him aware of his mistakes and he will ensure that he will not repeat them again.
I guess this will be a great learning experience.
