Fear...not?

2nd May:

Kuching's late afternoon sky was horrible and terrifying. It was filled with eye-glaring lightnings, earth-breaking thunders, gusty winds and not to mention heavy downpours for a good 2 hours too. I could not get back in time to close all the windows in the kitchen so literally, my bench top was flooded, water slipped into drawers and cabinets and wet half of the kitchen floor. It was all madness! I ended up having to mop the floor, dry up bench top, took out ALL cups, plates, bowls and utensils and washed them then dried them up before storing them away again.

While doing the grand washings, some thoughts flashed through my mind looking at the furious lightnings and thunders making their ways in the sky. I believe that Asian children are mostly (read: all) brought up in a way that parents and elders threaten and insert fear into their lives. For example, "If you do not listen to me, lightning will roll itself becoming a big ball of fire and rush into your house and chase after you." Okay. My dear mother told me that back then when I was really young but from the way how I could still remember those words so vividly, you know it has a deep impact in my life. I could recall i used to be really scared and trembled whenever there were lightnings, let alone the scary thunderstorms that followed right after.

After so many years, I do not blame my mother for telling me something like that because she was 'following' how the older generations did it to little children. Today, being a mother of 2, i still have that unknown fear for lightning deep down inside me. Yes, you heard it from right. Yesterday, when I was cleaning up the kitchen alone, those soaring lightnings made me wanted to scratch the cabinet doors like how a puppy would do when something scares him. But hey, my motherly instinct kicked in telling me I'm a mother of 2 and how can I show my kids that I'm scared of lightnings? If there were to be lightnings striking and my kids were in danger, I will be the one holding out my arms around them.

I was then questioning to myself why would older generations insert fear into their children and grandchildren. For instance, "if you're a bad boy/girl, police will catch you and put you to jail." What do they want to out of the words and actions? (I believe even younger Asian generations nowadays still do that to their children). After much thought, I came to a conclusion that the adults want to gain control over the children authoritatively and instantly. My mother wanted me to obey her words at that point of time or probably the trick would have lasted her long enough for me to obey to her words. Adults want children to stop behaving the way how children behave naively and senselessly and hence, only "locking" and "taking away one's freedom forcefully" can push the fear button of that child to make him or her stop doing what they are attempting at the point of time.

After my own experience in my life, I get this point and understand how senseless this act would be to put fear into children's life. My mother could have told me, "Lightnings and thunders will always come before the rain. It's how God invented them. Do not be afraid of them. Just stay in the house and you will be fine."

By asking oneself a simple question, one is clear with what need to be done. "Do you love your children?" If you do not, then all above would not make sense to you. If you do, then why would you want your beloved children to "fear"? Does it make you a better person if you insert the fear in your children and to see with your eyes that your children do fear what you wanted him/her to fear at the first place? If i did that, i believe i would be feeling i'm the worst ever being living in this world to make my child fear this world.

It's always good and responsible of you as a parent to tell your children in advance that some of their actions might results in injuries on them BUT never to threaten them further than giving warnings.

For instance, "Be careful, if you jump on the staircases, you might take a wrong step and fall off the staircases. You will hurt yourself and you will feel painful." Something like this is necessary for the children to learn that jumping on staircases is not okay because they will fall off and they might get hurt. If they did fall off, then they would know mommy's words are true.

"Be careful, if you jump on the staircases, you will fall off the staircases and you will hurt yourself and you will be in pain. Then ambulance will come for you and you will not be with mommy and daddy for a short period of time because you will be staying in hospital all alone." Extended version is an example of inserting fear because the parent is pushing the child's fear button that he/she will not be seeing the parents, whose child's needs, love and world are all dependable on. The psychology effect on the children might be he/she will be really scared of anything to do with needles/injuries/nurses/doctors/hospitals/ambulance for the rest of the life. You can never underestimate the much greater possibilities of how "fear" works in life.

So, being parents to our dear children who are presents from God, we really have to use our words wisely. We do not hope to raise children who have more fears than anticipation of happiness and joy of this world.