SHAPING EXCELLENT CHARACTER

A MANUAL FOR PARENTS
(FOR NON-MUSLIM)

PART 3

THE STORY OF ADAM AND HIS LITTLE SISTER: HOW TO GIVE REWARDS Your little daughter, Sarah, fell down while playing, hurting her knee. She started crying. Your son, Adam, saw her fall and immediately went to pick her up and soothed her. You saw what happened and you should therefore tell Adam immediately: "Adam, you did such a good thing by helping your sister. Mommy is so lucky to have a son who loves his sister so much. God will reward you for helping Sarah like that."

Things to remember.........

1. Give words of praise the moment you see your child does something good.

2. Tell your child exactly what good deed he has performed.

3. Say it with full sincerity and love.

4. Vary the way you phrase your words. Do not keep using the same words every time you praise your child.

Please note five things from the example above:

1. The mother tells her child that what he has done is something good.

2. The mother explained exactly what that good thing was.

3. The mother expressed that she was proud of her son.

4. The mother took this opportunity to make her son aware of how much he loves his sister.

5. The mother took this opportunity to foster the love of God in her child by telling him how much God loves those who do good.

 

CHILDREN NEED ATTENTION:

1. Every child seeks attention.

2. Our children will do almost anything to gain our attention.

3. Given a choice, our children would definitely want attention in a positive manner, for example, words of appreciation, praise, or love.

4. If your children do not receive any attention from you, then they will do anything that they can to capture your attention, even if it is negative in nature; for example, getting scolded, punished, or even beaten.

5. Children would rather be scolded than to receive no attention at all.

6. Parents frequently forget to express their appreciation when their children are behaving well.

Example (true):

Our teenage son does not smoke, even when many of his peers do so. We, as his parents, know this but we never mention it, always forgetting to praise him. We should tell him how much it means to us that he does not smoke, and that he is strong enough to resist the negative influence of his friends. This will help encourage him to keep away from smoking in the future.

Eastern Culture

1. In our Eastern culture, specifically in the Malaysian culture, we seldom give acknowledgment when our children do something good.

2. Usually we keep quiet, giving no praise, and this sometimes causes our children to feel unappreciated.

3. We always assume (wrongly) that our children will understand - that when we keep quiet it means that we are pleased, and are satisfied with their behaviour.

4. On the other hand, when we find our children doing something wrong, it is so easy for us to scold them, raising our voices at them, and punishing them.

5. Indirectly, our children will conclude that many things they do are not right, and that they might incur our anger no matter what they do.

6. In the Malayian culture (and probably other cultures too), parents seldom or never praise their children, especially after they have started schooling, and this lack of praise gets even worse when our children become teenagers.

7. Sometimes we feel awkward and embarrassed to tell our children that we appreciate them, and how much we love them.

   

8. This problem is made worse by the fact that the vocabulary for expressing praise in the Malayian language (and perhaps other languages) is very limited compared to that of the English language.

9. To overcome this problem, we need to be creative and invent our own phrases to express appreciation and give praise for our children's good behaviour or positive traits.

10. These words of appreciation and praise, after frequent expression, will come to flow out naturally in due time.

11. We need to remind ourselves to constantly praise our children, but praise them only at the right time and only for the right reason.

HOW GOOD BEHAVIOUR IS OFTEN IGNORED: THE STORY OF DAVID AT THE CANTEEN On the first day of school after the semester holidays, David, a kindergarten student, was yelling, disturbing other kids, and throwing his food around during recess. The teacher who was monitoring the children scolded David with a raised voice. The next day, David continued to behave badly in the canteen, yelling, disturbing other kids, and spilling his drink. The same teacher, losing her temper, scolded and pinched him. The third day, David behaved very well in the canteen during recess, neither yelling nor disturbing his other schoolmates, and he finished his meal politely - but, the same teacher who had previously punished David ignored him as if she didn't even notice he was there. Try to imagine how David will behave on the fourth day... .It is almost certain that David will start yelling and behaving badly again because it is only by behaving badly that he was able to gain anyone's attention, especially that of his teacher.

The Moral of the story:

1. The teacher paid attention to negative behaviour but ignored David when he behaved well.

2. David discovered that he will not be acknowledged when he behaves well. Therefore, he will likely behave badly in the future so as to gain his teacher's attention.

3. This scenario is often played out at home. Therefore, parents need to be constantly sensitive and observant, so that their children get the acknowledgement that they deserve for their positive behaviour. In this way, children are guided to always act in a positive manner, and do not need to do negative things to get attention.

4. Be sure to pay less attention to your children when they are behaving in a negative manner than when they are doing something positive.

WHAT IS THE ROLE OF PUNISHMENT?

1. Punishment is the most common method used by parents to control their children.

2. But using punishment has serious negative side effects, and we do not recommend using punishment even though it often seems to be an effective way to stop or reduce a child's negative behaviour.

3. Nevertheless, sometimes (but very rarely) applying punishment is necessary when a child exceeds certain limits of behaviour.

4. Punishment generally causes more harm than good and should only be used as a last resort after all other positive approaches have failed, and the gain is considered to be worth the harm that will be caused.

5. Ideally, a child ought to be raised using positive influence, which means giving many more rewards than punishments. From an understanding of God's use of reward and punishment, we would recommend a ratio of about 350 times as much reward as punishment (350:1) as the ideal.

Leaders of the world's religions, Buddha, Jesus, and Prophet Muhammad, as best we know, almost never raised their voice or beat children when disciplining them. They were almost always gentle when talking to children. An example from Muhammad, Prophet of the Muslim religion, shows this gentle way of correcting children's wrong behaviour. A companion of Prophet Muhammad once related this incident, "When I was little, I loved to throw stones at date trees so that the date fruit would fall down. One day, the Prophet Muhammad came upon me doing this and advised me to just pick up the date fruit that had already fallen from the tree, and not throw stones at the tree to make them fall because it harms the tree. He then ruffled my hair and invoked a blessing on me." We are told Prophet Muhammad was always light-hearted and tender with children, and never hit or even scolded any child in his entire life. Prophet Muhammad always practiced the concept of giving reward and not punishment in the matter of raising children to grow up to be good and right adults.

Why is punishment not effective when used to shape positive traits?

1. Punishment is only effective when children feel threatened by it. Once the punishment no longer threatens them, they will continue with their negative behaviour.

2. Punishment causes children to feel anger and hatred towards those who punish them.

3. Children will try to hide their negative actions to avoid getting punished. They will still do the wrong things, but they will hide it from their parents.

4. Punishment most often only satisfies the anger of the one doing the punishing, and is not used to help the child learn right from wrong.

5. Children will learn that punishment is the way to get what they want and this will affect the way they interact with other people. Children who grow up with this concept will raise their children the same way.

 

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