Does Your Child have these Bad Habits
Now that his friend reads my blog, I think it is better not to mention his name in this particular post. Well, I have more than one child. So take your pick and guess which child am I referring to…

Alright, my parent-child relationship with this boy of mine has been more of an uphill ride than anything else. Today, I am not going to talk about bad behaviour like being rude or lack of respect. This time my focus is on physical bad habits. These are his current bad habits that are driving Allan and I nuts!

1. He likes to stick out his tongue whenever he speaks. Almost very word he says has the ‘th-sound’ in it.

2. He often ask questions that none of us can understand and we need to probe many times before we finally understand what he is trying to ask. For example, “Mummy, why like that?” he asked pointing at something nowhere.

Me: “What like that?”
He: “Why not straight?”
Me: “What is not straight?!”
He: “That picture.”
Me: “Which picture?!!!”
He: “There! That picture on the lamp pole!”
Me: “That picture is straight! Why do you say its not straight?!”
He: “I mean the table in the picture is not straight, can’t you see?!”
*Super Eyes Rolled*

3. He likes to eat like a dog. He does not like to scoop up his food and put inside his mouth. He likes to scoop the food to the edge of the plate or bowl and bend his head down to eat from the edge of the plate or bowl.

4. He needs to pass motion in the middle of his meal. Either lunch or dinner time. This happens 98 times out of 100! Its especially irritating when we are eating at a coffeeshop whereby there is no toilet paper and obviously the Gents toilet seats are wet with urine. *eyes rolled*

To me, I think it is a health issue more than anything. This habit in particular does NOT drive me crazy, but it sure lit up the flame in his dad, who would scream at him whenever he says while he is still eating, “I want to go pass motion.” Because after accompanying my boy to the toilet, his dad has no more appetite to eat.

5. When you ask him to do something, eg. Wipe The Table. He would say cheerfully, “Ok!” And he would slap the wet cloth on the table, slide it across the table once to the left, once to the right and say “DONE!’ To him, so long as the table is wiped, it is done. He would argue, “You didn’t say it has to be every part of the table.” So everything that is instructed must be precise to the very last point! *faint*

6. Whenever Allan or I tell him to stop doing something, he would reply cheerfully, “Ok!” and would stop doing it. But in LESS THAN 10 seconds, he will do it again! No joke, its really less than 10 seconds!

7. Of ‘cos not forgetting his habitual farting which drives everyone in the family crazy?! At the dinner table, in the lift, in the car, in an air-conditioned place… you name it, he has done it in all possible places (almost). To me, I strongly believes that it is another health issue, so I am NOT angry but more of feeling helpless. His farting makes everyone else so pissed and lots of scolding and yelling at him will start, and THAT is not something that I like.

8. THIS IS HIS LATEST ADD-ON to his list of Bad Habits: He likes to rub his perspiration on his neck with his chin. He would bend his neck and RUBs meat over meat with his lower jaw slanted one side, mouth slightly open and tongue stuck out. I am sorry to say this, but whenever he does that, he has the retarded look and I REALLY do not like it. In fact, it is driving Allan MAD!

It has progressed from once in a few minutes to a few times in one minute. It IS getting from bad to worse and I do not know how to solve it. We told him to do it infront of the mirror, so that he could see how he looks, and he agreed that he looked ugly and did not like it; yet he choose to say that it is beyond his control. *scream*

Now it is no longer about perspiration. Even if he is NOT perspiring, he is still doing it! Can you imagine how awful it is when he keeps doing it as he speaks? He REALLY looks like a retarded person! *heartpain*

In the past, he used to have other bad habits too and they died over time. The less rooted bad habits were gone after rewards system was implemented. Others needed more time, more patience, more reminders before he could get rid of them.

But THIS LAST BAD HABIT on the list above is rather worrying because we noticed that it is affecting this posture, as one side of the shoulder is higher now because of the frequent tilting of the head and bending of the neck to one side.

So far, we have tried endless reminders. It is not working. He would say “Ok! I’ll stop.” cheerfully and do it again in less than 10seconds. *eyes rolled*

So now we are hoping that GOGO’s Crazy Bones can do the trick, since it is the thing that he wants most now. We said we would buy him a packet when he could stop doing it for one day, but the packet must remained unopened.

If he did not do that action for the second day, he can open the packet and take ONE Gogo out.

If he continues to control that bad habit on the third day, he can take the Second Gogo out.

And if he succeeds in ‘killing’ that bad habit on the fourth day, he can take the Last Gogo out from the packet.

And in all good faith, by not doing that ugly action in four straight days, we hope that it would be gone for good.

Ever since this agreement was made, two days have passed, and he has yet to achieve step one. Yes, he has NOT been able to control that action for one full day at all. Can you see how worried I am now?

Improvement has been minimal, but at least I can see that he IS really making a genuine effort to stop that bad habit. So long as his effort does not fade, my faith in him will not waver.

*fingers crossed*

Does Your Child have these Bad Habits