Tuesday, November 21, 2006

Human Psychology: Part1-- First four years

Human rarely study human psychology! This is a truth in our society, especially in Indian communities. I see a huge amount of space to fit this idea in our families. One important thing is, understanding and learning from relations and contacts and keep thinking about how others think, I meant positively.

If you analyze; those children to whom their parents are open, are peaceful, talented and confident in their actions. There is nothing wonderful in this, all human being need care and support and he/she always tries to get it through some means. The kind of open approach among the family members is not to be introduced one day, but it has to be cultivated step by step. In this modern age, people find less time to interact with their beloved ones and now it has become a custom of keeping in touch thorough some simple enquiries. It is shocking that even the family members won’t get enough time to spend for an open talk.

A human being is developed in stages though the lesson learned and experiences till this time. From them the behavior of a human being is evolved and so environment around and the situations surrounding influence a lot. All these portray the importance of understanding psychology in parenting. Although we understand that, situations and environments through out ones life influence much in that person’s behavior and habit, many of the situations and surroundings are uncontrollable. But, if you think quietly, there are a lot of things that we can handle carefully and create positive situations for our kid. I used “creating positive situations” intentionally. There are many things that we do intentionally, just to train our children. This idea of “creating situations” emerges from the fact that, habits can be taught, and most importantly, good habits has to be taught instead child will try to learn some bad habits from some one else. The simple principle behind this is, mind of a child is like a slate, and any one can write on to it, best parent will ensure that he/she has written or scrapped on that with good things at the earliest.

I personally feel that, more than 50% percentage of ones life can be influenced by those people’s parents, family, relatives and the surroundings. Means, we can even predict what he/she will become in future, what type of attachment he/she will have with his/her family in his old age after marriage etc. And it is a fact that a great portion of our children suffer from mental stress, just because they don’t have anyone to share their feelings at their early ages. I have observed that, children tends to search for companies just to get relieved and discuss their favorite areas of interest, but during this attempt, there is a chance for getting in to some bad groups.

Each of our family members can contribute many things here,

1. First thing is to understand and realize that care and support in your children’s day to day life has to do many things to your child’s life on this earth. And always keep your mind open to know and watch their every moments. If you are a parent, I feel that, you can easily monitor and influence your child, till he/she becomes 20 years old. I am hundred percentages sure, you can expect a lot from your child if you have trained and considered positively. There is nothing to worry in this, but you have to be vigilant enough to balance your actions and decisions on your child since your child is constantly watching you, to perceive things and develop his/her behavior.

2. In the first two years after child birth, child has to be with parents. In these days parents can train them a lot. Remember baby is watching you, your words and your relations with your spouse. During this time child will be more interactive with you, use those moments to teach love, affection and importance of care. Avoid quarrels and tensions at home; find time to spend with your child.

3. Between two to four years, is the time at which a major portion of child’s brain development. So it is an important time to be scheduled with guidance. Give time to,

i) Interact with you and listen his/her imaginations through words.
ii) Ask simple thought questions of why and how, just to develop child’s thinking patterns. Remember, we have to stimulate the thinking neurons.
iii) Give sufficient and reliable answers to your child’s questions, even if you feel the questions are silly. Child is thinking in and around his/her small world.
iv) Assign simple tasks through games. There are many things that you can try here. For example: cutting pictures from old color news papers and pasting them with gum on a chart, drawing in a large chart paper, maintain a book for general activities [ I had one, the book I admire a lot!!], showing pictures from a book and giving some explanations about it [for eg, show peacock in picture and explain some things about the bird – this will help to develop interest in animals], pasting a white paper on the wall near to your bed where your child sleep, simple word and picture games etc.
v) Assign some serious tasks so that your child will be aware of responsibility and importance of time in this life.
vi) If you want to develop some special behavior in your child, that is difficult to introduce at the early stage, do that particular thing in front of him and discuss about it and involve the child in some way. Sure your child will try to understand and follow it.
vii) Individually recognize your child for any good activity. But to prevent self esteem in a group of kids, recognize other children too while he/she is there in that group.
viii) Scold them tactically, you may keep not talking for some time and later explain your child why you did like that. This will help to understand what kind of behavior you are expecting.
ix) Tell them stories in bed; stop intentionally in between and ask them to complete it.
x) Ask the things happen on each day, with whom they meet today etc. This will help to develop the attachment with you. Child may complain and note behavior from some persons, guide and instruct your child positively in these situations.
xi) Tell and ask some thing about your wife/husband in her/his absence, so that your child can understand the relationship and care among spouses and how the whole family is building up.
xii) Avoid discussing things that your child don’t like and stress him/her. And if really want to eliminate that particular thing from your child, do it through situations, not just by quarrelling with your child through words.
xiii) Cultivate the habit of observation by bringing things and moments to your child’s notice. For example, you can show them the beauty of a leaf jumping in a gentle breeze.
xiv) Find time to interact with other family and relatives to teach your child manners in relationships.
xv) Find time to interact with your child and spouse, so that your child can understand how eager his /her parents to share things on him/her are. This will also help to get a feel that, both of my parents are caring.

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