Treating children the right way

-->

Lets do a simple exercise.

• Recollect your earliest memories
• Recollect your happiest moment as a child
• Try to find out who or what was responsible for that happiness

This aside, do the following exercise

• Try to recollect your earliest memory of sorrow as a child
• Recollect the person or event or situation that caused this unhappiness

I am sure that you can recollect the person/event/situation that caused sorrow more vividly than the factor responsible for happiness. This is because sorrow is more powerful than happiness.We are born with the ability to be happy, but sorrow is introduced to us by other people.

We remember being punished, but rarely do we remember why we were punished.

What you give to a child should be absolutely devoid of negativity. As adults we often have so much of sorrow, anger, frustration and sarcasm inside us that we accept as a part of who we are. For children, it is a different thing. These emotions are new and hurting and have a deep impact. It forms them as people.

This week at Niveditha Nikethan brought out these thoughts in me when I saw a child being told off by an adult for some messy work. The child shed some tears, then she was laughing some time later. But that scar will last for ever.

• If you happen to work with children please understand their nature.
• Do not try to instill the sense of what you think is right/wrong, good/bad, in a child.
• Present facts to the child and guide him/her.
• Do not force your opinions on him/her.
• If a child is wrong use gentle language to tell them what is wrong with patience and affection. Just because he/she is younger does not mean you can talk to them any way.
• If they repeat serious mistakes be stern and talk to them about it, but don't resort to abuses. Explain patiently.
• Become a child while talking to them, but treat them with respect. Don't baby-talk.
• When children are in a group, treat each one equally.
• You are never more important than the child.
• Put yourself in the place of the child and treat them the way you would like to be treated.

The way you treat a child affects him/her for an entire lifetime. You can break or make a child's life. Feel that sense of responsibility and act accordingly. If you cannot, then don't deal with children.