Rekha is tired of telling Ankur over and again that he is an untidy boy, and if he does not become a neat and tidy boy she will not love him. But Ankur just does not listen. 5 year old Ankur----, he knows that he is expected to be something else to get his mother's love, but what Even his teacher wrote in his book-Untidy work. He saw the teacher pat another boy for being tidy. He knows that tidy means neat. Ankur wants to be patted by his teacher and loved by his mother. But he does not know how. He is truly confused
Children do not understand adjectives detailed description helps them better.
What is happening here As many of you must have understood, Ankur is not clear about what exactly is being expected of him. To you and me Rekha's expectations from Ankur might be very clear. Maybe Ankur spills too much food, so she is calling him untidy. But little Ankur is not so clear. He wonders, what exactly he has to do to become a tidy boy. It would have been easier for him to understand if he were told in descriptive terms about what specifically is making his eating untidy and how he can avoid it. A statement such as, Ankur, when your food falls here and there, it does not look nice-that is what I call untidy
Similarly, if the teacher could pinpoint what exactly makes Ankur's work untidy (e.g. when you write, the alphabets cross the line so the next line has 2 letters in the same line and that makes your work look untidy), there are more chances of Ankur correcting his fault. In Ankur's case, he accepted that he was an untidy person as a given fact. Children get stuck with the self-concept given by parents.
Its very important for parents to be descriptive with children. Do you take the pains to describe the pettiest thing to your child
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