All About Your Child

“I don’t want you.”

“I don’t like you.”

“I want mummy to make milkmilk for me.”

“I want mummy to bathe me.”

“I want to go with mummy.”……and the list goes on.

Its hurtful to whoever that receives these messages. If mummy is a home-maker, then the receiver is probably the daddy.

‘does the child mean it when he says all these?’ To some extend he does.

This happens to both my kids. For my elder one, Keatkeat, he was taken care of by my mother-in-law whenever we have 2 different stalls selling our handmade accessories. Allan will be in one stall, while I was in another one.

We bring Keatkeat home only when we have a single stall in operation. For survival sake, we seldom have such a chance. We would try to make sure that we have 2 stalls at least, at any one time.

So if you have read my story, you can imagine how much I hated the job I was in then. I hardly have time for my boy and that makes me not much of a difference from my parents.

He was very anti-me and anti-dad then. He will cry and create a big hoo-ha when we brought him home, which I can totally understand, ‘cos I went through such situations too when I was young. So I never got angry and flare up at him.

The cause of this is being too reliant on one particular person, usually the one whom they spend the most time with. For Keatkeat, it was my mother-in-law and for Binbin, it was me.

Most of the time, such behaviour is controllable, but there are times it may become too ‘over-limit’ or too ‘unacceptable’. When such situation arises, there are a few pointers that you may want to do some reflection:-

1) how is your relationship with your spouse? how you treat each other affects how the child thinks of the person.

2) how much time-alone does your husband has with the child? make a point, schedule a day or 2 per week or bi-weekly; leave your child alone with daddy AT HOME, the whole day or for 6 hours minimum. Let your child knows that his daddy can do whatever mummy can!

3) how firm are you with the child when your child says those hurtful words? did you give in easily or did you insist that daddy will play, bath, feed, etc for the child. Your determination to let them be together will affect the speed of alteration to the behaviour.

4) always let your child knows that daddy and mummy is ONE! you two are the same, you two love him as much, you two will not be separable. In this case, she knows that daddy is not stealing your love away from him.

The tactics above were suggested in a parenting programme I saw many years ago. So would like to share with all mummies who may be facing this problem and feeling helpless. hope this helps…let me know if it doesn’t, it worked for me and many other children whom I came across.

Is your child at risk of becoming too reliant on you and you alone?

If you bungle raising your children, I don’t think whatever else you do well matters very much. ~ Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis

“Please put away your toys now and eat your dinner”, you say to your child. A few minutes later, your child still refuses to stop playing with his toys. He begins to throw a tantrum when you try to stop him.

Sounds familiar? As parents, we have to deal with misbehaviour from children from time to time. How do we encourage good behaviour in children, and how do we discourage bad behaviour? How can we discipline our children effectively?

15 quick tips for disciplining a child:

1 – Tell a child what he should do and not what he should not do in a calm voice.
Try to say it softly but stern tone, “Keep your hands to yourself”, instead of “Don’t Touch”. Remember why a child doesn’t respond to “Don’t” or “No”, if not, read here.

2 – Show a young child how to behave properly by explaining and showing how it should be done.
“Put your toys into the box carefully like this….” and demonstrate.

3 – Give the child some preparation time before he has to carry out the instruction.
“You have 10mins to play before dinner time. When time’s up, can you put your toys back into the toy box and have your dinner?”

4 – Discuss what will happen if he misbehaves, always deal with the behaviour, not the child.
“If both of you continue to argue over who should have this toy, the toy will be removed from the 2 of you.

5 – When the child behaves well, reward him immediately to reinforce the positive behaviour.

6 – Praise, smile, give a pat on the back or hug him. Give small treats occasionally but make it clear that material rewards will not be given every time.

7 – Never tell a child upfront that rewards will be given for good behaviour.
“If you are a good boy, I will buy you an ice-cream.”
This results in behaving the right way for the wrong reason and would caused the child to think that its a must to be rewarded when he behaves.

8 – Withdraw privileges if the child still do not obey.
For example, If the child refuses to eat his dinner because he wants to watch cartoons, switch off the television.

9 – Impose responsibilities, especially for older children.
You can try to ask the child to clean up the mess if he throws a tantrum and creates a mess.

10 – Scold only when appropriate, that is when all other steps failed to work. Hold the child’s shoulders with both your hands, look at the child at eye level, tell the child clearly and sternly why he is scolded and how he should change. Remember to scold him for the action, not him.

11 – Reconcile with the child and let him know that you love him, it’s his behaviour you don’t like.

12 – Never scold the child in public. Bring him away from the scene where he misbehaves to a quiet place. Talk about the unacceptable behaviour. Alternatively, say that you are bringing him home now because of the action he did.

13 – Match the type of discipline with the child’s behaviour. Choose a method that is suitable for the age and the maturity of the child.

14 – Discuss with your spouse and the child’s grandparents on the aspects of disciplining. Work as a team and be consistent, so that the child knows that no matter who is with him, the tolerance level and the style of punishment for the same action remains the same.

15 – Never disagree with the adult, who is scolding or punishing the child, in front of the child. This cause confusion and the child will find it harder to accept that what he did was wrong.