LOVE, Kloudiia

I saw this incident 2 weeks ago when I was on my way to see the doctor.

Standing at the traffic junction waiting for the light to turn green, there was a mother and a child right in front of me. Before the light turned green, the mother tugged at the child to cross the road.

“Wait mom!” the daughter gave a light yell. She looked about 3-5 years old to me. (Ok, I know that’s a pretty big gap, but seriously I can’t tell the age of a child yet *oops!*)

The mother hesistated, not because she heard her daughter’s call of caution, but because cars were still running across. Then, when the coast was clear, she kind of “dragged” her daughter to cross the junction. The light was still red.

A quarter way through, the man turned green.

I was right behind them.

What was I thinking of? This:

“What kind of education and values is this mother passing on to her daughter?”

This mother was undoing what the school had taught the little girl. So I’m left wondering if the little girl will be feeling very confused. Who should she listen to?

In her little mind, she knows that she can only cross the road when she sees the green man. But why is her mom doing otherwise? So, who is right? Her teacher? Or her mom?

You know the answer as well as I do. In order for our young ones to grow up with good values, there really has to be congruency between the three pillars of a nation. School, home and society.

This was merely an example of incongruency between school and home that I’ve seen. Let me give you another one. I witnessed it in the clinic on the same day.

Father was paying at the counter for his daughter’s medication. Father “complained” to the clinic assistant that his son is very naughty, and doesn’t listen to him at all.

The clinic assistant, a lady, decided to play the father’s angel. She walked to where the kids were seated, and spoke to the father while looking at them:

“Very naughty ar. Don’t listen to you is it? Sell him away la.”

Then she turned to the son and said “Ok, sell you away ar. Don’t go back with your father later. Sell you away, since you don’t listen to your father.”

I sat there and looked at the entire situation. The father stole a glimpse at his son, waiting to see if he would be frightened by the possibility that he could be sold away as a punishment for being a non-obedient child.

The son had a slight shock on his face initially, then followed by some tints of embarrassment as I noted. Well, apparently the clinic has got external parties (people like me) whom aren’t family.

Oh, by the way, I forgot to mention that I was at a specialist clinic, and the father is supposedly to be an affluent (I can’t say wealthy) man from Indonesia.

Now, can we find congruency between home and society? Maybe, as the father apparently felt the clinic assistant had done a good job in instilling some amount of fear in his son. But whether or not this method work, or for the matter, a good way of resolving the issue, is highly to be debated.

How much of a better relationship between father and son has this lady helped to foster? Or have a hand to damage? 

I know I’m not yet a parent. Yet as a child, I know that I wouldn’t like to be handled by my parents in such a manner. To give birth to a life requires huge responsibility. Yet how many of us are really prepared to take on this gift to be one?

We may not be the best parents in the world, but I’m sure our children aren’t expecting us to be the best. Probably what they’d like is just for their mom and dad to take some time, sit down (or while standing) and truly, really, listen to their little voices from the hearts.

Sometimes, maybe it’s only that tiny gesture that makes their world go round.

We all learn. Why not from your child?

P.S I can’t judge the way the parents raise their children in these 2 examples. But I can say I dislike such methods, hence the title for this post. Have you seen anything similar? Would you like to tell us about it too?

[tags]parenthood, parents, children, listening, family relationship[/tags]