Rupa's seven year old son is a slow learner, at school, and struggles with his studies. He spends a lot of time day dreaming. Rupa responds by trashing him for being inattentive and irresponsible. Her son, in turn, lets off steam by trashing his classmates and playmates when he gets irritated.

Manisha is an introvert, who tends to cry a lot, and sulk in one corner, when upset. After a fight with her husband, she can be seen crying and chewing her nails.

For hours, she would not communicate with anyone. Her five year old son has picked up the nail biting habit, and tends to go into a shell, when stressed out.

You are Her First Teacher

Your kids learn most of their early behaviours from you. From the above three examples, it is clear how you often pass on your own traits and behaviours to our child, without being aware of it.

When a child is born, you are in a beautiful state of mind, where you have the capacity and power to shape the character and behaviour, of your child.

However, with adults it is difficult, if not impossible to make others see your point of view, or to teach or train others. Adults already have their own fixed ideas, and don't change or take suggestions easily.

With a child, you can actually mould her like a piece of clay to get her to develop and acquire the best of habits and behaviour.

For every child, the mother is God, for she knows nothing else and completely trusts and believes in her mother. You have the chance to literally shape the destiny of your child.

But for all this, three things are vital:

1) You should be available to the child, at all times, in the initial formative years.


2) You should be completely in tune with the mind and body of your child.


3) You should be able to lead by example, and not by words alone.

Kids Learn By Mimicking Parents

One thing you should know is that almost all children learn, not by listening to what you are saying to them, but by seeing what you do, and by listening to what you talk about. In a sense, children are perfect cameras and tape recorders, replaying your actions and words, without bias.

If you are short tempered and yell a lot, you will find your kids will display a similar tendency as well. Instead of telling them to be quiet or peaceful, you must become aware and realise that she herself is all the time angry and screaming.

This, in turn is the very reason why your child behaves in such an unruly manner. She captures your image in her mind, and duplicates it without altering or thinking about it.

If you want your child to be honest, repeatedly telling her to be truthful alone will not work. You must first avoid all the small and big lies that you tell others.

Telling your child to answer the phone, and lie that mummy is not there at home, will only inculcate this lying habit in her. Calling up your office and giving some flimsy excuse for not going to work, because you want to attend a family function, will only encourage your child to want to do the same thing with his school.