Those sweet little balms

          Standing three feet and ten inches: playfully fuddling under the mango trees, sometimes riding my own bike, or playing hopscotch with my cousins. Childhood was something that everyone should enjoy and treasure its moments, but not everyone's memory of it is something that will invoke happiness. I believe it is an essential part of growing up, for the development of personality, progress of socialization skills, for the number of social circle, and simply for something that you would like to remember in the future; something that brings up redolence with bliss.

           In the Filipino family, coming from my observations as I observed different families in parks, parties, malls, churches, etc. Every parent has their own manner of disciplining their offspring. Of course, a popular method would be the behaviorist approach. This is where we flood the kid a series of rewards, and different incentives in order to reinforce them to do their best in something, or to properly behave in something. Unfortunately, this method has its drawbacks wherein the actions of a kid would be too impulsive because of a reward, and there would be no inner motivation from the child unless there is a prize. Another way of disciplining is something that my parents were fond of using, corporal punishments.  When I was just a child, I experienced corporal punishments, heaps of landing sticks to my palm and ass, along with amalgam of verbal and silent treatment to maximize the punishment. Well, this is something of negative reinforcement to a child, and something that can potentially harm the psyche of the kid and should only be of minimal use. Unfortunately, some kids end brutally beaten because of physical abuse wherein it can also be the cause of trauma.

        Some parents would prefer to just let a kid cry, or let his tantrums run its course until he got back on his working system.  It’s some kind of silent treatment which my mother also experimented on me. Let the kid realized what he'd done, or that he can't have this toy: it's that some sort of thing. Other wa is using mythical creatures to like ghost aka "mumu", monster, vampire. It's a method to get the attention of a child, and get them to follow you. But not every kid falls on this weak trap.

         Children are the greatest imitator. They copy what you do, how you behave, what you say, so we got to be careful. If you don't want to be a bad influence on kids, well keep out of children. But kids are a potential leaders, so they must learn, and be a good person. I think we should revise the saying: "Leave a better planet for the kids." How about "Let's leave better kids for a better planet"?