Once superstar Ranbir Kapoor pushed his nanny into the swimming pool knowing fully well that she didn’t know how to swim. That was when his mother and actor Neetu Kapoor realised that she had to teach him where to draw the line. She locked him up for a few hours before he was really sorry. Brattish children have always been a problem for parents because they don’t know when to start and how to discipline them. Keep it simple, yet firm, experts tell Deebashree Mohanty
Meera Singh beats her six-year-old son when he gets too abusive. Manjari Aggarwal believes in time out sessions where she doesn’t entertain her son for half an hour. Deepak Sharma, a software professional has a completely different outlook — treat brattish children with passion, he says. His way outIJ “Treat your children as adults. Give them a reason why you think their act is not right. Just don’t tell them to do this or that. They would want and deserve a reason for everything. That way the child doesn’t learn to be stubborn,” Deepak Sharma, a bangalore based software professional and father of a 11-year-old boy tells you.
He says that with young boys of that age, patience is the key. “You need to be very patient with boys, with girls the case is somewhat different. They are more sombre than boys. Girls are much more easy to handle,” Sharma says. There are many parents who like Sharma have their task cut out. Each person has a different way of dealing with their brat children.
“It is almost impossible to identify a brat from the others. The meaning of brattishness varies from parent to parent. But I will not deny that proper discipline is essential for children of all ages. They should be taught to differentiate between what is right and what is wrong from a very early age. It doesn’t matter if the child is a girl or a boy, somethings are simply out of the bound for everyone,” Dr Deepa Passi, child psychologist and paediatrician, Apollo hospital, says. Passi tells you that most times parents are confused about how to deal with such a problem and she has a simple way out — devote time, try to understand what they are saying and tell them harshly that somethings are just not done.
According to a review carried out by a Child Mental Institute in California, brattishness in a child can be defined in degrees. The survey reveals that there is a certain amount of brattishness present in every child and adults alike. It is the higher degree of brat-like behaviour that poses a problem, both for the parents and the society at large. “Its when children take stubbornness to a level where they don’t mind hurting anyone is where the problem lies,” Passi states.
Common brat-like behaviours identified by this survey include — indulging in excessive physical activities (mostly fighting and kicking), deriving pleasure out of someone’s else’s pains (mostly physical problems, like hitting a toddler till he cries), intentionally troubling parents and teachers, having no response to threats (physical or sociological) and when a child doesn’t respect a ‘no’.
“I have been blessed with two opposites. My eldest son was the calmest person I have ever met but my younger son is just too much. When he was two, he beat up his nanny till she bled from her nose. He wouldn’t stop even when he saw blood oozing out of her nose. We beat him up to teach him a lesson, but that made him more angry. He started hitting his head against the wall. In the end we had to give into his tantrums. As a parent I knew I was doing the wrong thing by giving in to his stubbornness but I had no other choice. I had no idea about how to deal with such a child. I feel sorry for him too,” Ritika Khanna who is a homemaker in Chicago recalls. Khanna’s husband works with Wipro US and helps out with the children whenever he has time. But Khanna insists that the boys are better managed by their father because he doesn’t mind spanking them at will.
But fatherly threats are no longer enough to control and manage children who have got off the hand. “It is a known fact that in parenthood, if one is acting like the bad cop, the other has to be the good one. Gender doesn’t play a role here. I have known many cases where it is just the opposite. The mother is more serious about disciplining her child and doesn’t take a no for an answer. Whereas the father is the cuddling type. In general, brat-like behaviour needs to be treated with contempt and the child has to be told where to draw the line. If all it takes is harsh behaviour, then so be it. Teaching the child early on is an advantage,” Meenal Sinha, a professional child counselor in Vasant Kunj says.
Sinha has been hearing out a lot of parents who come to here with similar complains. But what puzzles all of them is how early should they begin to train their child to behaveIJ
“There is no fixed age criteria but then, there is no point in beating up a six-month-old baby so that he/she knows not to pull her brothers hair (for instance). The baby would not understand why she is being punished. It doesn’t solve the purpose then. It is up to the parent to realise when is the right age that the child should be taught to behave. I would go with three years plus to start training your child with a stern no,” Dr Passi says.
She adds that there is no ideal situation or a Wikipedia which explains harsh behaviour but a parent can try with a warning to start off with. “There is a three-pronged approach to deal with a tough child — first, try to ignore when the child is being stubborn. Then if he/she still doesn’t get the message, give the child a stern warning. If that too doesn’t work then scolding the child might help. Try this a few times and if you feel that the child doesn’t get what you are trying to say, then a beating could work. Don’t be casual,” Dr Aparma Gujral a child psychologist tells you.