About a year back my Macbook stopped working. Even though it was quite old, I didn’t expect it to go kaput just like that. I asked my son, who uses the laptop sometimes to watch Minecraft (ugh!), if anything went wrong. He simply said “no”. I believed him. On further probing I got to know from my house help a day later that he had dropped a glass of water on it. It was too late to save the laptop. Apart from losing my son’s precious baby pictures, I was worried about the fact that my son was scared of admitting his mistake. All this while, I was under the impression that I have managed to keep the gates of communication open. That he would tell me everything without any fear of consequences. He had lied to me, acting out of fear rather than love. It made me very sad. Reality can hit you in so many ways.
Punishing my son for breaking expensive things or even stuff that I cherish is something I have never done. Then why would he lie to me? Probably because of his fear of disappointing me and not meeting my expectations.
I don’t remember where I had read “connect before you correct” but it worked beautifully. I sat down and had a calm conversation with him, where I expressed my concern. When he felt understood and accepted, and knew I was on his side, he owned up. Despite the protective environment we try to provide, a child goes through a lot every day. A lot of humiliation too where he ends up feeling small or incapable. The pent up anger or frustration (though not very apparent) comes out in some shape, manner or form. I have come to a realisation that it’s the connection which works over everything else. At least, till the next reality check 🙂
8 Comments
Connect before you correct.
A lesson learnt 🙂
Thanks for the awesome article.
Thank you Sachin 🙂
I can totally identify with the disappointment a parent feels when kids lie or hide things. After
a lot of reading up on the net I am
of the view that kids are going to lie
specially as they grow up. No matter
how secure we make them feel..they
are not always going to be candid
with us. Apparently they have their
own reasonings and we have got to
let them be. All we can to keep the
communication channels open, stay
invested and ask many many
questions so that we have a general
idea of their world and thinking
process. It does not mean that we
failed to give them that kind of
enviroment…It is just how it
is…Thats what l am told although i
wish like any other mom tht I could
magically read her mind, know her
problems and solve it with which i
know are better solutions..If u find a
“No Lies” trick let me know ..but till
then we can take solace that it
happens rarely and mostly they come
up to us.
What a meaningful article Anupriya ! thank you !
Extremely well written Anupriya .. In fact a similar episode happened with us around a week back .. I was mighty astonished when my kid actually woke me up in the night , must be around 3AM and owned up !!!! She also said (in between heavy sobbing) that she couldn’t sleep , not because she felt guilty(or may be she did) but because if I find out somehow I will scold her badly and “tell mama !!” , Although impressed with her being quite candid, I still thought that perhaps we as parents , may be unknowingly or without too much thought are setting wrong rules for our kids in terms of behavioral expectations , may be we are just reprimanding too much or letting them believe somehow that no mistakes are ever expected of them …
Thank you Vikas for sharing your story 🙂
At younger ages they do own up most of the times.
I am worried about the times to come when they r in preteens and teens .. when they close most of the doors to us, then we would have to bank on the connections which we have made as of now, to connect then first, correct we may not be able to at all.
Todays world it is more of peer talk which works with kids than threatening or scolding i guess. But who makes our rage understand.
Superb Anupriya…….. 🙂
A lesson to parents n individual too 🙂
I’ll definitely try to connect before correct 🙂
Thanks a ton angel 🙂