My sister-in-law told me that she is looking forward to go to her daughter’s best friend’s birthday party last weekend. Reason? To check out on her daughter’s friends and to meet up with their parents. In my heart I was thinking….’Ew, that’s the kind of mom I dislike most!’ (sorry sis-in-law).

Today, she updated me on her findings,“Her friends look perfectly good. Doesn’t look like a bunch of girls that will get her daughter into any kind of trouble. Ohhh…then it may not be her friends after-all”

“Huh? What did you mean?” I asked.

She said, “You see, I told you about her lying to me about almost everything nowadays. All along I believe strongly that it must be the company she is mixing with in school. Recently, she took money from home without telling anyone, I consider that as stealing.”

(huh?)”You mean the money she took from home belongs to someone else?” I was confused.

“Well, its money from her piggy bank, yes its her money, but she should at least let us know….as I was saying, then where did she learn lying from?”……

(Why should she let you guys know when she is taking her own money to spend? You don’t need to learn to lie. Humans are forced to lie when they are under pressure of any kind, isn’t it? The very first lie is never easy, your conscience is biting every part of you. Then practice makes perfect. It became easier, more exaggerated and more stylish. Where is the pressure coming from then? Home and parents of course.)

My sister-in-law continued, “My mom told me that there is a high chance that some-dirty-things (spirit) is surrounding her to cause her to behave so badly.”

(I was going crazy as I listen to this. You blame it on spirits? The unseen, unknown of the other world on the things your grandchild do?)

“But I don’t think so. I think its because she has become naughtier as she grows older and learn more things, or rather tricks. She is becoming out of control. I think I must be even stricter with her.

“You know, her pocket money has reduced to $0.70 a day. It used to be $1.50. We punished her by taking away some of her allowance whenever she lie to us. If she still doesn’t change, very soon she will not have any allowance from us.

“We tried the reward method, but it didn’t work. We told her that if she is able to save some money by the end of the week, we would double up that amount and let her buy whatever she wants with that reward.

“She still comes home with nothing.

“I went to her school canteen to record down the prices of the food sold in the school canteen, so that when she comes home from school I can check on her. If she tells me that the food and drink she bought in school do not tally with the amount she has, then I know she is lying.

“Did you know that she refuse to react to the school bell now? I have the teacher’s mobile phone number (unbelieveable? believe it!) and we are working together to keep a close watch at her. The teacher told me that when the bell rings for them to assemble after recess time, she continues to sit in her bench to munch her food and refuse to move an inch even though the teacher asked her to go back to class.

“The teacher told me that she is getting from bad to worse!

“Its really a headache. When she is a good girl, she is really like an angel. When she is a bad girl, sometimes I really feel like strangling her. We have started to cane her more often now, but there is still no improvement.”

The End.

There is so much I wanted to say. But my sis-in-law is someone of high ego. So to get her to listen to someone younger than her, like me, is like talking to the wall. She believes alot in the friends she mingle with. Friends who have children older than her daughter. Whatever her friends say about their own children, she listens and trusts that its true about her own child too.

In the first place, didn’t you pamper your daughter too much? When she was a baby, you get her the best. When she was a toddler, you gave her whatever she wanted. When she was in preschool, you pampered her by bringing her to overseas trips and cartoon roadshows, hey you practically went to all those mascot stuff, from barney, to power puff girls, to winx and what-have-you.

She is so used to the whatever-I-want-I-have-and-it-must-be-the-best kind of lifestyle. I-do-whatever-I-feel-like-doing kind of attitude is deep-rooted in her character already.

All of a sudden, your treatment towards her changed. You started to introduce the cane, punishment and yell at her.

She can’t accept the drastic change. She has not changed. Its you that have changed. Its your expectation of her that has changed. Now that she is in school, she learns more and hence there are more different ways to show her this kind of character.

Children’s mind do not think about the future. So your reward system will not work. One week to a child is like ten years to an adult. Immediate rewards work better. Reward her daily. If she comes home with some remainders, double up that as a reward on that day itself.

Oh gosh! How could you equate caning with improvement? You are introducing more fear and more rebellious resentment in her towards you.

Don’t blame it on others. You were with her for 6 years before she started her school. 6 years is a long time to build a good foundation. Why do you think that friends around her or even spirits (I can’t believe I am typing this word) around her can be so powerful to change her completely in just one year? If her character is so easily changed, then you haven’t been doing a good job for the past 6 years then.

We understand the power of peer pressure. Yes its influential. But ultimately if the teaching from home is so strong even if the worst classmate comes by, she will not be corrupted in anyway.

I have a dear friend, Wen Ching. From young, her parents were very strict when it comes to character building. They definitely did a fantastic job. Wen Ching is never seen loitering around after school, she is never near classmates who misbehave all the time, she always goes home after school, does her homework, clean the house, goes to bed by 10pm, reach home by 9pm whenever she goes out to have fun with us.

She is not succumb to the pressure of the world nor her peers. She never had a pager nor a mobile phone till she graduated from the University. She never followed the fashions or trend. She was just who she was taught to be when she was a child. That’s what strong foundation I am talking about. By the way, I need to clarify, she is not a nerd ok. She is happily married now and staying in Australia with her husband and mother-in-law. Its harder to meet up with her now. She comes back to Singapore only once a year or two.

So whatever you want your child to be or become, its possible. Its the way you teach your child. Its the way you behave in front of your child. Its the way you talk to your child.

So dear sister-in-law, if you think you still want your daughter to match your current expectation, its going to be a very rough journey, so patience and nothing but patience is the only way to success; cos’ what you are doing to her now is literally saying “whatever mom taught you through my actions and words for the past 6 years were all wrong, throw them into the dustbin and try to absorb whatever that I am going to teach you from now on….”

How tough is that for a child to handle?