Kids and Their Adrenaline

Several times I encountered with situation where a mother scold and even slap her toddler for mishaps caused by the poor kid. And even worse the toddler was threatened that he/she would be punished with more severe punishment if he/she ever repeated the same thing.


Scene 1 : The father told the mother to take care of their 3-yo daughter while he was paying for a mountain of groceries. And the mother, I could say unnecessarily, scolded this poor daughter for just standing behind the father and doing absolutely nothing. And the poor kid even received one or two pinch from the mother, for again no obvious reason. And I was there, could not do anything except to just smile and pray for the little girl with puppy eyes, that she's going to be alright. And the mother was carrying another baby of her and I bet the baby was properly registering each word and scene.


Scene 2 : A 4-yo boy was running around a shopping complex and fell. Came his grandmother, babbling on his recklessness with gentle slap on his hand. Then came the mother shortly scolding on his uncontrollable actions and adding the salt to the wound by threatening to slap him on his face if he ever did the same thing again.

COME ON MOTHERS! YOU ARE DEALING WITH A PERSON THAT ONLY SEES THE WORLD FOR LESS THAN 5 YEARS! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT?

To these mothers. I'm not saying that you are not a good mother; all mothers are sacred. But, you are basically shaping a human being here, a God's gift. And you gave them all sort of bad experience during the crucial development years and expect them to be good when they grew up.

Yes, disciplinary is utmost important, nobody would deny. But it's not always the result that matters, but the journey, the pursuit. Every single threatening, scolding and even worse slapping will scratch a mark in their heart and gosh, kids have the capabilities to remember, absorb and adapt everything at this age (below 5-6 years old). This would give the overall picture of what the kid should expect in the future. Or even worse, they would continue the 'legacy'.

In Islam, Rasulullah (pbuh) even encouraged parents to treat their children differently at their different level of development but to still preserve the very essence in raising a kid; love. During their pre-schooling years (more or less younger than 5-6 years old) parents are actually advised to be like them; play, have fun and love! And when they know how to differentiate between right or wrong (mumayyiz), then only we could teach them responsibilities, more strict instructions and more disciplinary. And when the kids get older, parents are actually encouraged to befriend with them. And later when they reach adulthood and maturity, you could be their advisors and as a point of reference. And again, love is not to be separated.

And in fact, love is even one common thing that all religion on earth would share.

Do you think by scolding your kids and even toddlers in public would show any love of yours? N.O. Kids are like us, they have feelings and they understand that when people are staring at them when they were being scolded or pinched or slapped, it was not a good thing. They understand humiliation and they could understand that when you say no, that means no. You don't have to scold them or slap them (at any part of their body). It's just that they love being kids; cute, rebellious and ignorance. :)

Being strict is never the same as being angry. You could be strict and polite at the same time. You could be strict without losing the loving part. You could be strict and explaining the logic to your kids and yes they would not understand and obey at the very first time, but trust me, all our actions and explanations were being safely kept in their mind. Different kids would react differently, at different stages of their life.

My daughter is not an order-follower herself. She always has her own agendas, explorations, experiments to do. She is the type that would definitely rebel when I said no and I believe this is a common to all kids at her age are like that.

But throughout these almost 2 years, I could see repetitive (and tiring sometimes :) ) explanations really help. I would explain the simple logic on why she should not do that and if she still wanted to proceed, I would let her do, with close monitoring. And if things would not happen as per what she expected, she would voluntarily retreat. For instance, she's not the kind whom playing with mommy's and papa's handphone because we are very stingy one. Haha. No. Because it's not even a toy and handphones are not some easy things for us to earn. Plus, she has mountain of toys to play with and she will play with them, provided she is being accompanied. So, either mommy or papa will company her while playing and in which that, ladies and gentlemen, cost much much cheaper than another iPhone 4. :)

We are not perfect parents; my husband and I. We are not embarrass-parents-when-their-kid-screaming-in-public-proof either. We constantly fight with our anger, ego and limited patience level. But hope God still guides us to be good parents and that includes resisting us to express our impatience when Eirsa threw her tantrum in public. We'll definitely be disapointed and angry when it happens, but as far as possible, we'll try not to express it in public (sampai rumah siap Eirsa, I gigit-gigit dia. Gigit manja lah, don't panic ;) ) And Of course Eirsa is not excluded from receiving a gentle slap or two on her hands when she really challenged my patience, but this only happened at home.

So parents. You are the more intelligent unit here and usually kids will not and and react as per what you want. And they learnt a lot when they were young and this is a good time to really penetrate all good things in their mind. And educating them their way is easier than yours, trust me. So, do it wisely.

Good luck to all of us, parents!