Teacher, the only person in this whole world, whom these ‘tiny cute budding kids’ treat as their God. Every day, they will return back to their home with a new thought, for which they are ardently defensive. Just try once to invade their learned concept, and they will come up with such defensive statements as-“Mumma, you don’t know, our ma’am has told us this way!”, “Papa, this is not correct, do it this way!”. They will keep on preaching others and will glorify their teacher as the best preacher. At school, there begins a competition to be the favourite one of their loved teacher. They will be jealous to see other kids getting similar attention and love.
Parents, the only people in this whole space, without whom these little ‘happy souls’ are colourless and lifeless. Here too, they compete with their siblings for love and affection and develop jealousy. If they will see their parents, caring and nourishing the other one, they become insecure and look for means to get back that same attention and love, they used to receive prior to the birth of the new one.
The expression of jealousy at this stage of development, either with kids of the same class in school or with their siblings at home, is healthy, until and unless it does not exceed a level at which a child resorts to ‘aggression’ and ‘physical abuse’ as a means to satisfy their “ATTENTION SEEKING BEHAVIOUR” or “EGO”.
At present, there are numerous mediums through which our kids are learning violent expressions. They are learning that whenever you are not attended and loved enough and compared with others for similar kind of acts done, employ such techniques through which others(who are being appreciated) can be hurt, and satisfy their ego. They will not think twice before committing any physical abuse because they know that the result will be an instant feeling of happiness and satisfaction. This act gets into a trap of “CONDITIONING”, where a child could associate the act with its pleasing result and thus dares to repeat it in the future too. This jealousy turns into anger, and becomes a peril for both, the kid experiencing jealousy and the other one who will become the target for releasing out all the negative energy, and thus is life threating for both of them.
Now, what we can do is to “to break the conditioning”, the child must know that ‘violent acts’ are dangerous for both. There is a need to intervene at the very first such harmless act, where the child might have just stared at the other one. There can be an effective use of ‘controlled punishment’ wherein instead of exposing the child to an aversive treatment, the child can be barred from using such facilities which were for his comfort, such as limiting the playtime, restrictions on Television and games, asking them to help in gardening and home cleaning. The use of negative reinforcement must come immediately after the wrong act, and once used, don’t pamper the kid immediately. Once pampered in guilt, they will conclude that our parents or teachers do scold but we can win over them easily and can continue with our business. They must realise that their act is severe and is not acceptable.
A teacher is considered a role model and an epitome of love, care and affection. They must have an “unbiased eye” while handling kids and must respond back to their needs and queries. The parents also need to accept the fact that their kid’s teacher also needs a certain level of freedom while dealing with their kid. We as a parent cannot question their each and every act in support of our child. We all need to understand that, being possessive is good but over-possessiveness makes our child weak.
These little changes can bring great impact in the life of our children.
Originally published at www.momspresso.com