Sunday 09 / August / 2026
I was watching two little girls stare at each other. One of them grabbed a toy and whacked it on the face of the other girl. She let out a scream. Her mother picked her up and looked in disgust at the four-year old little offender sitting at the floor.
The girl got a rapping on the fingers from her own mother as a punishment. I opened my big mouth as usual. Look at myself, I told the two mothers, my teachers put a permanent scar in me from the constant screams and caning that it left me with a stammer in my speech. How could small children learn to experiment and explore if they are constantly rapped on the fingers?
The mother probably did that to please the other woman but it was wrong. The second mother frowned because she could not find the wisdom in my words. The other girl could have scarred her daughter for life, she told me. How could a toddler scar anyone with a little hand? Perhaps the look of shock on everybody’s faces in the room made her regret the choice of her words. She put her down next to the ‘naughty’ girl as a way of apology. We watched the two played happily completely forgetting their quarrel.
It was just the way children express themselves when they are left alone. Stopping them from exploiting their surrounding is limiting the development of their natural resources.
No wonder that we don’t have rocket scientists in the Gulf. We don’t let our kids develop their minds without us parents breathing hard down their necks. The power to express at will is educational as long as it does not leap the boundary of decency. The long hot summer means school holidays and time away from strict academic routine. So it is important to see if our children ‘learn’ something away from school during the break. If we stop them from taking a swim in the sea for the fear of drowning or riding a bike in case they fall, than we are taking away a huge chunk of their experience they never had.
On the other hand, if we raise hell or beat them up when we caught them smoking a cigarette instead of calmly explaining the health consequences, then we take the task of parenthood to the extreme. Children, in this day and age, do not need bullying. They rebel and you lose them for good. Let’s look at our own childhood and find answers for their behavior. If it was difficult for us then let’s smooth out a few things for them. Let’s look at the problem this way. There were fewer temptations when we were growing up and it was probably easy then to stay on the right side. Now, with Internet, dangerous sports and abundance of drugs, it is easy for them to rebel than not when they feel they have no room to express themselves.
What we need to do is keep the line of communication fully open all the times. The rest will take care of themselves, we hope. If they are going to stray then it is easy for them to come back for our help as long as the communication channel is always open.
