Parents of Preschoolers  Discussion Forum

Name: richa agarwal

The commonest of all the problems is most of the kids are easily fascinated by the toys and belongings of other kids resulting in demand for the same thing from their parent. Now this happens so frequently that it becomes very difficult for parent to fulfill all their every day demands. And it is more difficult to deal with the kids in the age group of 3-5 years. They live in such a self centered world that they do what they want to do and for that they can create all sorts of nuisance anytime, anywhere ultimately forcing the parent to get the things done. Now how to get the matter resolved? Your child is not ready to listen to you till you get him what he wants. Threatening, nagging, punishing will worsen up the situation. So no scope for that. Bribing him for some other thing leads to the rise of other problems. He may listen to you for sometime but he comes back to his point that he wants the same thing. So this is also not going to work. But something needs to be done because fulfilling one demand will definitely give rise to another demand and this will continue. But how to limit their demand?
I also faced this situation when my 4 years old daughter demanded a toy microwave oven that she had seen at one of her friend’s place. Now that toy was imported and gifted to that child by his relatives. So we knew that stuff was not easily available in the shops. My daughter had stopped eating her food properly. To pacify her we also tried in few shops but all in vain. She was not ready to accept other toys. I know we were in trouble. I was thinking in varied directions to find out the solution to this problem. Her stubbornness grew making it difficult for us to deal with the situation. Then suddenly I asked her “how about making a microwave oven at home”. She raised her face to look at me attentively, she stopped misbehaving at once and asked me curiously “is it possible mom? How can we do it? Will it look like the same that I have seen? Instantly, I replied it will be better than that because you are going to make it. I saw an excitement on her face. So without disturbing the flow I thought of moving on. I was now sure that some thing has clicked and it is going to hit. I asked her to get an empty shoebox lying uselessly in the shoe rack, and then we picked up some glittering wrappers, scissor, fevicol, tape, sketch pens and few decorative items. Then I said to her that we will do this together. We wrapped the shoebox with a beautiful glittering paper and cut out a door in the front and then made all sorts of buttons on one of its side and decorated that oven involving her. That oven looked really good. It was a very good effort on our part. I saw my daughter’s face, she was so happy that she had made a microwave oven herself. She called all her friends and showed that home made oven to everyone. The idea worked. She stopped demanding that microwave oven anymore. I got a sigh of relief. That homemade oven was dear to her. She happily played with it and treasured it as she had made it herself. I think the whole feeling that she had done it herself was very important to her. She felt very proud for that.
From then on, I tried to find out the solution at home for her fascinations before hunting for that thing in the market. Of course, I will not talk about the big demands like cycle which we cannot make at home but I think we can limit the smaller ones. Firstly, it is not a costly affair and secondly, the things can be made out of the cheap and readily available material at home and sometimes the useless material in the home is put to use. You see the best out of the waste can be made. You just have to be creative and apply your brain and it can do wonders. So we made wonderful things like:
• camera out of a soap box
• goggles out of paper and cardboard
• purse out of newspaper
• wristwatch with cardboard and ribbons
• Christmas tree with disposable glass, paper and other decorative items
• Painted a t-shirt with her favourite cartoon character on it with fabric colours etc. she demanded these things and we made them at home involving her. She started enjoying the idea. It was fun for her. The whole idea satiated her demands and my problem was also solved peacefully.

Further, I realized that this idea helped me in various ways. As a parent:
• I learned how to handle such situations peacefully, patiently and calmly without losing temper,
• It brought out my creative side also,
• Its fun playing and doing something creative with kids. It made me feel lighter in the day’s hectic schedule,
• I developed more closeness and bonding with my kid.

For the development of child this idea helped me in:
• Limiting her demands,
• Proper utilization of time,
• Inculcating creative interest in her and bringing out her creativity. Even kids apply their mind and give ideas which should be encouraged. This helps in the development of cognitive and thinking skills of the kids,
• learning touch, feel and how to use different things safely under the guidance of some elder person. It helps in improving fine motor skills of the child,
• channelising her energy in positive things and doing something productive and constructive,
• encourages feeling of working together,
• encourages feeling of importance as she gets proper attention during that time which further boosts her self-confidence and development that she can do it,
• this enthusiasm keeps her happy which positively affects other things.
Her happiness and smile on her face keeps me going when she says “mamma lets do it”.

Subscribe to this conversation Reply Anonymously