Keen to learn more about inclusive workplaces? Want to be inclusive of the LGBTQ+ community? Learn more & request an invitation for a very special 2-hour session here!
The task of raising impatient, entitled kids lessens the joy of parenting. Here's a smart strategy to raise kids who can be patient with their demands!
The task of raising impatient, entitled kids lessens the joy of parenting. Here’s a smart strategy to raise kids who can be patient with their demands!
As a financial writer, I enjoy writing about deal-makers. Now, I get into deals with my four-and-a-half years old son, Vajra. Our deals are for the number of candies, episodes of Mister Maker or Spiderman cartoons, and about the days on which he can eat fries or chips. Whenever he demands candy or chips at a super-store, I tell him “Let’s finish the candy at home. We will buy these the next time.” If he wants to watch television at an odd hour, there is a deal again – “You can watch one episode now or wait for some time and watch two episodes after finishing dinner.”
This deal-making doesn’t always work. But on most occasions, it’s heartening to see my son wait to get home, have his meal, and then rush towards the fridge to have a chocolate. He waits to reach home before opening the return gifts from a birthday party. I would like to believe that my deal-making is indeed helping him delay his temptations even though it’s for a bigger reward at times.
I hope he will gradually understand that to get something he wants, he will have to show patience or self-control.
In doing this, I hope he will gradually understand that to get something he wants, he will have to show patience or self-control. This is the lesson I should have given him when he held his first toy and threw it away, the first time I took him to a super-store, or the first time his grandparents got him a crayon-set which he already had. I am not sure how it was for you, but as a first-time-mom who took a sabbatical from work, it was all about giving quality time, latest toys, good food, and endless mall visits for my little bundle of joy.
Within two years, I realized that the “law of diminishing returns”, as they say in economics, was at work. There were too many options. Newer toys meant old ones were misused or littered all over the house. If the toys broke, Vajra knew that Dadaji (Grandfather) would get a new one soon enough!
Instead of requesting, he would often end up demanding things. “How come he has become so insensitive?” “Why doesn’t he respect his toys?” I would often ask myself. I realized my parenting blunders. The impulse shopping stopped. We started following the rule of one toy a month, in spirit! And then came the deal-making.
Now we don’t dread going to supermarkets with our son. At times, I get to hear “ok mom, we will get this tomorrow” at the departmental store or toy shop. The candies gifted by friends are usually eaten after meals. So, some amount of “delaying of gratification”, as psychologist Walter Mischel said, is at work.
Walter Mischel, an American psychologist known for his famous “Marshmallow Test”, is my inspiration for the deal-making.
In the 1970s, he got 4-6 year olds in a room and placed a plate of cookies (marshmallows) in front of them. Kids had a choice: eat one cookie or a marshmallow immediately or wait for 15 minutes till he came back to the room, and you would get two. Some kids ate one immediately. Some kids distracted themselves from the table by imagining it to be a picture,and some looked around in the room.
Mischel tracked these kids after 10 years. During their teens, the kids who had waited for him to return to the room, got better scores in competitive exams. In their thirties, he found that they earned better and could deal with frustrations and setbacks in a mature way.
Well, my aim with deal-making isn’t to see Vajra score a high SAT (Standardised Test) score or crack an Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) exam in his teens; but it is to help him gain self-control, a trait that will help him respect the money he gets or earns, respect the privileges and choices that come his way.
It’s a subtle message that may get lost when he will see other kids giving in to their temptation of opening a return gift or gulping down the juice can before paying for it. To ensure that he can sustain this self-control, I will order Walter Mischel’s latest book, the best-selling “The Marshmallow Test” in which he tells us how self-control can be practiced and mastered.
Are your kids ready for the marshmallow test?
The Great Gruhini would be happy to know and share your experience of the marshmallow test!
Pic credit: Image of child throwing a tantrum via Shutterstock.
Rachna Monga Koppikar aka The Great Gruhini is a finance writer who’s worked with India’s leading publications for well over a decade. Having swam and mastered the treacherous waters of corporate and personal read more...
Women's Web is an open platform that publishes a diversity of views, indivisual posts do not necessarily represent the platofrom's views and opinions at all times.
Stay updated with our Weekly Newsletter or Daily Summary - or both!
But what if you could highlight the pleasure of eating a mango? Mango-eating has always been the stuff slurpy, sloppy moments are made of.
Someone once said, ‘A little coitus never hoitus.’ Or, as a passage from an ancient Indian text says, ‘The horse and mare, the bull and deer, form the high union, while the horse and deer form the highest union. On the female side, the elephant and bull, the mare and hare, form low unions, while…’
Apparently, the animals represent people who are trying to have a union, that is, sex. This passage shows how the ancient Indians knew a thing or two about the birds and the bees and the hares and the mares. We had passion or kaam. And we had the Kama Sutra.
Unlike the earlier WAGs, Ms Sharma was already a celebrity with a huge following, before she got hitched. Why should peeps question now, when she shared her thoughts about one of the toughest times of their life?
Behind every successful woman, there is a ‘Kaam Waali Bai’ and a ‘Calm Waale Spouse’.
Similarly, behind every successful married man, there is a fabulous understanding woman. She could be the warm cuddler, a fierce tigress or someone who will hold the mirror to show the true picture.
Working mom or homemaker - every mother has her child's best interests at heart. Let's learn to be less judgmental of mothers.
“Did you know that the child has a working mother? This is what you get when your children are raised by maid-servants. They are grossly neglected.” How many times has a working mom heard this statement and felt its sting?
The prejudicial assumption made by a parent about the upbringing of another’s child only proves that ill-informed people not only judge a book by the cover, but they also comment on its contents by looking at the section it is filed in.
Mothers are blessed with protective instincts that kick in as soon they feel the baby move in the womb. While some mothers may want to be home with their child 24/7, others may balance work/career with motherhood. In certain societies, the working mother is unfairly perceived as neglectful and the blame for any real or imagined problems is laid at her door. (more…)
We don't buy toys for our son, but that does not mean we have no options for play. On the contrary. How? Read this to find out our secret!
We don’t buy toys for our son, but that does not mean we have no options for play. On the contrary. How? Read this to find out our secret!
As part of slow parenting, we arrived at a decision to not buy many toys for our child. Now one might ask — but of course this is the age to play with toys. If not now then are they going to play with them during their 30s? Of course not! There is a subtle difference here — we only strive to not buy toys, but we don’t strive to stop the play. Here is how!
There was a point when I used to dread the thought of taking my child for an outing. But children need these little breaks from the usual routine. I usually have a problem about where to take my child. Malls are out of question. Being minimalists, we have reduced a lot of shopping too. All our fruits, veggies and grocery mostly come from online stores as I order organic stuff and it is convenient.