Hello Parents,
Hope you have enjoyed Christmas vacations along with your children, family and friends. Actually during this period i.,e vacation time, parents get to spend a lot of time with children and it brings lot of happiness to life. Apart from this, parents also get to know more about the behavioral issues of the child. So, what happens with many families? Mamma says to Pappa, It’s because of your pampering that the child is behaving in this manner and vice versa. Sometimes grandparents are blamed for child’s misbehavior.

Today, I will share about a video that I recently watched on Facebook.
One evening a boy named Hayden came to his father and told him that, ‘you have to drop me to school and pick me up from school for the whole week ’. Father asked Hayden the reason for the same. Hayden honestly said that, ‘It’s because I bully children in the bus’. The bus attendant has punished me for the same. He will not allow me to board the bus for a week.

Father instantly said, ‘Bullying is not acceptable, I do not tolerate this’. Father thought for a while and decided to teach him a lesson so that Hayden doesn’t bully children in the bus anymore.

Next morning father told Hayden, ‘you will have to run to school as a punishment and I will accompany you. Father sat in the car and started driving slowly. Hayden started running along with his school bag. First two days were really very difficult for Hayden as school was almost 6 miles away from home. But father was a very determined person. Father observed that after two days he could run faster than the first two days. Hayden had to run to school for almost a week. Father accompanied him every day.

Don’t you feel that it needs patience and determination to give such punishments?

Last week Hayden’s was out of his mind in the school. This week after discussing with teachers, father also found out that there is positive change in Hayden’s behavior.

I think, this is just the right way of parenting. If we want to teach a child a lesson scolding, beating will not bring the desired result. The objective of punishment is to bring the desired change.

In the above example, father had lot of patience to drive to school with child the whole week. Hayden ran few miles per day, so it was a good exercise for him. Father did not blame school authorities for banning the child from the bus. Father is very sure that, after this punishment Hayden will never ever bully in his life.
Are we ready to spend time to bring positive changes in the child? Disciplining child requires lot of patience. I feel it is a very creative punishment.

Few parents will surely disagree with this view. They will feel that this is a very harsh way of disciplining child. But the father in the video was very sure about the results and did not care about what people think of him.
Parents, you can be equally creative…

Happy parenting…
Sonia Govardhan