Wednesday, October 21, 2009

The Scare Tactic


I have not read up much on the subject of bringing up children but I am quite sure most experts warn against scaring children into submission.

Most of you while growing up would be familiar with "bad people will come and catch you" or sometimes the police would come catch you too depending on your locality, and in the past some politically incorrect terms were used too.

This I remember from my childhood and I think it is quite funny. "Police come catch you and put you into prison, and you will have to eat curry rice." I am not quite sure how scary curry rice is supposed to be. Maybe as a kid, you wouldn't like spicy food or the prospect of eating rice with only curry gravy is quite pitiful.

The issue that I am faced with today is whether I too should employ a scare tactic. Honestly, as much as I would like to adopt all the idealistic approaches of raising children but being in the state that I am in today; WHATEVER that works to keep my boy from harm, who cares.

I have been telling Eddie there is a dinosaur outside the house and I always accompany that statement with a roar. It worked for about a week. This morning he ventured out when I was not looking and realised for himself that of course there isn't one. It is very tiring to have to consistently outsmart your children.

3 comments:

khemy said...

Poe, I just tell my kids the truth, if he climbs the almari, the almari will fall on him (which had happened recently), if he's running around in the house, he will bump to something and there will be blood on you, if he goes out without slippers on, the cacing will get into the foot and will come out from your mouth, which, i think sedikit make sense la..
Err..of course it sometimes works on my 3 year old, for my 1 and half..hmm..sometimes he listens sometimes he doesnt (in my case depends on his enthusiastic on particular things)..
Oh, whatever works for you..
Thinking of my kids at home already makes me tired..*sigh*

Mom again said...

i can imagine how stressed out you are. of course there are things that we must tell them the truth especially things they could hurt themselves with. it is those things that we can't quite come up with a good answer that we usually make it up with tall tales. :)

hope you're well these days. getting big i can imagine.

little miss kechik said...

hehhe.. scare tactics dont work on my nephews. i dunno what does. hehehhe!