MONSTERS II

A sequel

Let’s dwell into the mind of monsters. When I wrote that post I was thinking more from the perspective of the child with regards to the concept of parenting. Now as I’m older, I think I understand these monster a little better.

Discipling your children takes courage…to be deemed a monster.

I got a dog recently and it being a puppy, we needed to discipline him at a young age so he doesn’t stray when he’s older. I’m less responsible for the dog but my partner is definitely making up for my lack of responsibility. He has been disciplining the dog in an intense fashion…scary even. To be honest, I was quite taken aback by his aggressive approach to training the puppy, I felt that it was cruel even. When I question him if he was affected by how the public views him when he’s being harsh on puppy, he said it does and he tries to refrain from reprimanding the dog in public.

Then it struck me that that’s exactly the role that strict parents have to undertake to make sure they instill positive values in their children. In the short run, it seemed cruel but the benefits will be reaped in the future. In the perspective of the child, parents would be deemed a monster for scolding them whenever they do something wrong – they are only concerned in the present. Whereas for the parents, despite seemingly being “too harsh” on the child, they do so in hopes that they are able to cut out these bad habits whilst the child is young so that in the future, they will be a better human being.

Theoretically, discipling your child from a young age is the responsible thing to do but how do you know when it gets overboard? Is excessive violence justified to instill these proper behaviors? Where do you draw the line?

I don’t think there is a line to be drawn in a parents’ mind as long as they achieve the end result they want. They would most probably think that they know best and act according to what they deem fit. The end result…could possibly go both ways. The thing is, no one is there to advise parents how to discipline your child and not all methods are effective.

But one thing for sure is that the fear approach tend to work… at least in most Asian households.

So if it works, why change it? When you use fear to discipline your child, you are training them to be obedient to your instructions. Once the child grows up and turns rebellious, fear might not be the way to go.

“The strictest parents have the sneakiest children”.

It’s true. The child simply adapts to their environment to counter the fear that was instilled in their system which may not necessarily be a good thing. I for one grew up with the strictest parents and honest thoughts? I’m practically a huge fan of lying to get my way. If you keep saying no without telling me why I can’t do something, why would I want to listen to you? Communication with the kids? My parents’ didn’t have that. They probably assumed we would not understand their reasoning for their disapproval so a straight no end of story makes things so much easier. Granted, they were also a big fan of abusing their authority as well, “I’m your mother and I said no means no. Period.”

Did my parents discipline me not to lie? Yes, but did it work? Not quite.

Sure, when the kid is young and does not understand reason, use the fear approach if it works for you. But once they have the emotional intelligence to question your actions, I think it’s time for your to communicate with them why a certain behavior is incorrect. The parenting needs to evolve as the child grows, fear is not a one size fit all policy which works for all ages. It really did affect my character because I honestly think lying was alright or rather the concept of trust was literally nada. It wasn’t healthy at all.

Perhaps the recipe to good parenting would be to understand your child and act accordingly rather than simply churning out instructions/punishments. Discipling your child evolves with their age and if you continue to stay stubborn in your authoritarian ways, chances are there is bound to be a communication breakdown.

Let Mom be the good cop and Dad can be the bad cop.

It’s easy to let each parent take on the burden of being the bad guy/good guy in the parenting process but it isn’t ideal. A good balance of good and bad in each parent is required to ensure that the perception of that particular parent is not biased. You have to understand that once one parent has that fixed bad guy role, it’s easy to sit back and keep being the bad guy without redeeming yourself at all. I mean why confuse the child right? Let him hate me, I’m doing everything for his own good after all.

Truth is, at some point, being the bad guy all the time? It does affect your mental psyche in one way or another and you might even get lonely.

It’s worse if you don’t a strong pillar of emotional support to channel your woes. A good balance reduces the biasness in the child. Interestingly, the good cop would be the child’s favorite parent but that’s not actually a good thing. It may simply mean that the good cop is the lesser evil and they didn’t have much of a choice to begin with.

There’s honestly no such thing as good parenting because every child is different and it’s always a learning process.

What works for one set of parents may not work for another. It’s easy to sit back and stay fixed in your ways but children, they evolve and ultimately what you miss out would be far beyond your wildest imagination.

D