dimanche, novembre 20, 2005 I had dinner with a whole big bunch of people just now, which included a family of four - father, mother, daughter (7), son (4). We were at Sakae Sushi at Wheelock, and the kids (being kids) were being extremely hyper, leaning against people, crawling under the table to get out and get in (and get out, and get in, and get out... etc. you get the picture.)I am okay with that. I understand that a lot of kids do get hyper when they are in a big group of people, and tend to take advantage of the fact that there are people around who will indulge them their play. I don't mind that at all. We're having dinner, and the kids are crawling all over us, and suddenly I feel my left and right legs being scratched in succession. Not just once, but twice. It's the four year-old kid. I just told him to stop doing it because it hurt. It wasn't just me - he was scratching Dav, Pris and XM as well, which, quite frankly, in addition to being a rather painful encounter, was rather unhygenic. Remember, we're eating sushi. Kids at four, eat sushi with their BARE HANDS. So I tell him to stop, and he stops. He doesn't stop crawling about, but as I've already covered, I am fine with that. Anyway, he's four, and sometimes I think that children, especially boys at four, develop temporary deafness. What happened next is that his sister (who has also been crawling about) sits back in her designated spot along the couch, slouches down, and starts kicking me. I don't think that is behaviour that should be tolerated at ALL, and so I tell her very sternly to stop kicking me, and to sit up. She stops kicking me, but doesn't sit up. I don't care - so long that my pain has stopped, you can do whatever you want to your spinal cord. What I didn't expect was her sudden demeanour change - she starts pouting, and looks on the verge of tears. After a while, she crawls back under the table across to her mother, and buries her face in her mother's shoulder. At this point, I'm halfway between "oh shit what have I done" and "but she's old enough to understand that kicking people is unacceptable behaviour". I decide to go with the latter because she is seven years old - enough to appreciate the limits of acceptable public behaviour. I apologised to her dad, telling him "sorry in advance, I think I scolded your kid and now she's pouting and about to cry," but he was nice enough to say that if she was misbehaving, it's alright. I thought about this incident all along the bus ride home, and I'm wondering out loud now: was it just lip service that KH was giving me, just to be nice, or is it acceptable to scold someone else's child? I don't mean literally take the cane and beat him, but is disciplining someone else's child acceptable when the child misbehaves? I do know that in many cases, a soft "No, don't do that, it's not nice to do that" to the child will suffice, but I'm talking about discipline in the sense that I demonstrated - tell the child very sternly that something is just not acceptable. This topic was actually highlighted in Desperate Housewives last season, and they came out in favour of friends disciplining their friends' children. As a person who does occasionally find friends and other kids tiresome, I find that I am of that inclination. I am aware that parents might think differently... especially parents in Singapore, with their previous 宝贝s... What do you think? Update: I polled my Pastor, who has two kids (5 and 1) of his own, and he says that he's fine with it, if the scolding is warranted. But he qualified it, saying that most of the time, it depends on two factors - whether the scolding is warranted, and who the person is. So far, feedback that I've gotten has been quite positive. [Keep your kids away from me] |
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