Despite the fact that Anirud comes out as a well-mannered, nice boy, there are certain things in him that needs changing. One such thing is his inability to accept criticisms, even if it is something very trivial. On the other day, we asked him to write the numbers 1 to 50 on a piece of paper. After a few minutes, he came back to us showing us the paper with all the numerals. Using the recommended way of giving feedback - we ticked all the numerals, scribbled a 'Very Good' or 'Excellent', praised him lavishly on his effort and then added, '.... but, the number five should have be written in a better way and not like the letter S. I am sure you can write it better. Can you try once and make these numbers perfect? Otherwise, you have done a fantastic job'. This is all we said and I am sure we said that in a very amicable tone.
However, Anirud could not handle this and started crying. As this is not the first time we have seen him react this way, we let him finish his round of crying and pretended to ignore him, which brought him back to us after a while. After 'Amma/Appa says these things for good' lecture followed by 'I will never cry again amma' ritual, it was all peace.
We got to know that the above is very common among toddlers. Every week, his football coach picks up three pupils for training well in that session. As you all know it, it works in the round-robin waythat every kid gets praised at regular intervals. Until the time Anirud got his first 'pat on the back', he used to come home in tears. Speaking to one another parent, I got to know that this was the case with quite a few of the kids. I believe that the kids will grow out of it naturally, as they grow older. In case, if any one has better way of handling this, we are all ears.
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