It was a simple game of snakes and ladders. Avanya insisted that I join Priya and her and I couldn’t say no. After all she is my darling niece.As the board was placed across the table, I reached out to pick up a red coloured game piece, my obvious choice, when Priya called out from the kitchen.
“ Don’t go for red Gittu. That is Avanya’s favourite.”
Okay. So yes, you need to give in to your five year old’s fancies. The game started and as it progressed I realised that we were playing a new version!! Every time Avanya would be bitten by a snake, my sister would make her jump the number or throw the dice again with a strange excuse, “Hey! We caught the dice cheating!” At a point when I thought I was close to the finishing number, with Avanya two places behind me, the longest snake on the board was purposely made to bite me, even as Priya made her usual “ she is a baby” excuse face at me.
The game ended with Avanya getting that “ I am the winner” feel. And me becoming double sure that this pseudo victory is the rung on the ladder that needs to be removed.
Parents, usually work at two levels:
The conscious and the sub conscious. While we place certain disciplinary actions of ours, like teaching table manners or the appropriate behaviour at a get together at the conscious level, a lot of things are imbibed by children during those non-teaching periods when they pick lessons of life by merely watching us or in the way we treat them.Even if for Priya letting her daughter win a single, puny board game is hardly an issue, Avanya does carry with her the idea that she will be a winner every time; that whenever she loses, somebody or “the dice” will have cheated.
As she moves out to face the world, losing will not even be a virtual reality for her.
But life is not as kind as her mother maybe. The way she chooses to deal with failure or anything that is not to her heart’s desire is determined by the way she is subconsciously taught to deal with such situations at home.No wonder suicide rate among the young generation is on the rise. A child who cannot deal with his not so favourite meal at the dinner table can definitely not deal with the not so favourable conditions later in life. Easy access to alternatives and simulation that is good enough to temporarily satisfy the ego, should be a big “NO”.
Ticking off is important. Being over sensitive to your child is just not the rung he needs on the ladder.
Let him be upset over a defeat, a regular meal, a teacher’s unappreciative remark. And as parents let us be conscious of our subconscious!
Happy Parenting with BuddingStar …!!!
For more Parenting blogs by me click here
- Shoojit Sircar’s Tweet and Why Must We Take Note of it - July 8, 2017
- Making Yoga a Way of Life - June 21, 2017
- Don’t Blame It On The Dice - June 19, 2017
