Could these be handled differently?

Since Chirpy has come into my life I’ve started closely observing events related to kids taking place in my surroundings. I’m more alert and aware of what other mothers are doing or how they are reacting etc in situations where in it’s critical to handle kids carefully. Every set of parent has it’s own methodology to bring up kids and there is no standard ‘how to bring up your kids’ rule book but I guess someone else’s experience can help a parent,as a guiding line, to take a step or to not take step or differently take a step when faced with a similar situation.

Reading this incident at Momo’s reminded me of the below cases which I came across sometime back.

case 1:

We’re are in Chirpy’s paediatrician’s waiting room.Meanwhile, we notice that the couple which is right now inside the doc’s cabin has 2 kids. A boy somewhat one year young and the girl a 4 year-er. Both kids are to be injected.The boy comes out smiling with his dad within seconds-clearly which means he faced the dreaded needle smilingly. Then comes his sister’s turn who now is shouting,running inside the cabin and wailing so hard as if someone is slapping her ruthlessly.Outside,the father was feeling embarrassed.The mother came out to ask help from the dad but he was not willing to go in and tackle that crying child so he remained outside. Finally,the compounder,the doc and the mother managed to get the girl injected and within a minute the wailing sounds vanished as if they were never there. In the next instant the girl came out sheepishly smiling-no traces of fear,tears or pain on her face !

Of course the girl was ‘scared’ of the needle.As it is clear from this incident that the girl was psychologically scared. She had a mental fear of the needle . Made me think that why do children and even some adults are scared of being injected? Where in we all know that the needle is not going to do any harm except make you feel that an ant has just bitten you and the feeling will only last for few seconds. So what goes behind this psychology of human beings ?? Generally I feel that it comes from parents’ / elders’ contribution.How? Don’t we come across situations where parent’s tell their kids this  ‘eat this or else we’ll take you to the doc and get you injected’ ??? ‘Finish your homework or we’ll call in the doctor to give you injection’ or ‘mamma has gone to the doctor and hence didn’t take you along or he would have given you an injection’ ???

Parents often use this tool to scare the child so that he’ll do the desired work. But in long run is it helping the child?

case 2:

A mother is complaining about her little boy,who is a 6 year-er,to her neighbour-when the boy himself is present at the scene.

Is it fair to the young boy ? Won’t he feel dejected that his mother is talking negative about him and that too to an outsider? Will this not make him lose his self-confidence/lose faith in his mother/make him feel low? Or even worse make him react against his mother ??? Won’t we,as adults, feel humiliated if this was to happen to us?

What do you think the boy in the above scenario did ? He literally shouted at his mother,in front of the lady,denying her complaints. Was it good for the mother?What did she achieve by this? Has she not sowed a tiny seed of animosity in his mind?

And I’ve heard children remember things from past really well…

I don’t know what and how I will bring up Chirpy…but I would sure remember cases like these and will keep making mental notes so that I’ll try not to be too strict or too lenient or too harsh or too soft with her…I hope I’ll be able to balance !