Monday, November 8, 2010

Why is it so difficult?

The books naturally make itt sound easy, but instilling discipline in children is a fairly difficult task. Picture this:

I was on the phone. Sandhya had misplaced a key and I was helping her look for it. The skey was quite important and so the stress level was quite high.

Two girls are playing on the bed. anjali is pretending to be a horse and Sophia is the rider, and a fruit bat and all sorts of intermediate things. They are laughing, mostly, and I turned my back on them and continued the key hunt.

Suddenly Sophia begins to cry. Anjali had been trying to make a tunnel for Sophia to crawl through and the tunnel apparently collapsed on Sophia, trapping her under Anjali. Anjali was laughing and Sophia obviously was in some kind of pain, though i know it was not very serious.

My stress level about the key made me shout, but didnt make Anjali get up

The shout drew husband, who promptly pulled Anjali and put her on the other side of the bed.

Anjali began to cry. I hung up the phone and took her to the time out place. There she stayed and cried for a bit.

I found the key.

Anjali stopped crying, stomped back into the bedroom and flung herself on a pillow.

We turned off the light, Sophia took her position on the bua, and i put out the other arm to pull Anjali towards me.

Anjali shook off the arm.

I put the arm around her again. She shook it off again.

She was obviously sulking.

"Anjali, do you want to cuddle up to mummy?"

No answer

"Ok. I am sorry i shouted at you"

No answer.

"mummy what?" asks the bua drinker

"I said i was sorry i shouted at Anjali"

"louder louder", says the bua drinker. What does she understand?

"FINE! I AM SORRY"

Still no answer

"Anjali, do you want a story?"

Ditto

"want tioie", said Sophia, breaking off the bua.

I told them the story of snow white and rose red with Anjali and Sophia as the protagonists. Anjali punctuated the story with "whys", but kept shaking off my hand everytime I tried to wrap it around her.

When the story for finished, I asked

"Do you want another story?"

No answer

"want nuther toie" said the girl who breaks off only if there is a very strong reason.

So I told another story... some enid blyton thing I had read ages ago. By the time the story finished, I was nearly sleepy. I had given up and decided that the best thing was to let Anjali sulk for a while if she wanted.

A small hand found its way to mine and clasped it. I held the had and both off us went to sleep.
 

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