Off the Cuff: A parent seeks out a positive alternative

There wouldn’t be a parent on this planet that crossed the frontiers of child rearing without wielding the merciless weapon called the negative assertive. My wife and I haven’t proved an exception, despite our pre-natal resolution that we would never, or only sparingly, use that definitive monosyllable of prohibition and denial.

It’s used so often in our home these days that the walls seem to be echoing the N-word when it hasn’t been uttered for a reasonably long moment. It’s like vocal signboards that keep springing up all along the path of my toddler in his very home, long before he will get used to all those rude interjections that are rudimentary to civic life: No parking. No stopping. No diving. No eating!

While it is easiest to blame us parents for the unrestrained use of control over a two-foot-something toddler that hasn’t yet evolved beyond two-syllables of sweet babble, ten minutes with this diminutive specimen of human curiosity and cunning would be all it takes to view any parent with kinder eyes.

Two-and-a-half feet isn’t much. But when it is good to let two tiny hands reach up to the hob knob, it’s tall enough for a mother to shrink in horror. Two little feet aren’t much too, especially when they wobble. But when they flit from one step to another at uncanny speeds, aiming for an irresistibly entangled mess of home-theatre cables, a panting mother is bound to cry out in panic: “No!” When his curiosity crawls under the cot to inspect safely stowed away cartons, or dips a delicate arm’s length into the throwaway bin, I join the restrain in a forced baritone: “Don’t!” — if only for the fear of an ugly bump on his head or an unwelcome change in his recommended diet.

It’s easy for anyone to get carried away by this seemingly disproportionate display of force and fool themselves into calling it parental bullying. That is until one looks into his eyes, now turned away from his precarious mission and looking at you with a twinkle of comprehension camouflaged under innocently raised eyebrows. Don’t you be deceived; he knows the meaning of your glare. And sometimes, much to his mother’s annoyance, he’ll simply continue with what he was doing — tugging at a cable hard enough to pull the TV down or threatening to scramble on to the grand old armchair’s flagging arm, over which he is now half-suspended. With a disarming smile, he turns it into a stop-me-if-you-can game between mother and child. Believe me, toddlers know how.

Amidst these antics, it is we, the parents, who are rendered helpless about using the N-word. How can we not, and as often as it demands? But then, just as we are worried about his safety or that of our new LCD, we are also concerned about stopping or slowing him in his tracks, with our rude interventions. To add to our misery, parenting specialists of our times put the fear of the future in us. With every “No” or “Don’t” we might be discouraging the child’s curiosity or turning him hesitant! Which means, every time I object to my son getting entangled in those cables, I could be depriving him of a lesson in logical problem solving. When I stop him short in his precarious ascent of the armchair, I might as well be dragging down his inborn ambition to conquer Kilimanjaro. How awful a thought that is to a parent, you can imagine.

Instead, I would rather encourage him to do all that. To be curious and discover what is beneath and beyond; to be fearless of heights and armchairs. But then, his feet are still flitting and he barks at big cats at the zoo.

So, we still say it as often as we can’t help it. It sounds just as it did all these days, but is spelt differently in our minds. Every time we say it now, we are encouraging him to explore and discover. “Know, my son, know”, we say. And he stops and listens, if only for a moment. Hopefully, he’ll catch up with the newfound meaning soon.

A different descriptor.

Sudeep Koshy is a creative director and writer based in Dubai .