From the time she learned to say phrases, I have always insisted that my daughter Jinaki give me a reason when she says she wants something. And I have always given her a reason when I want her to do something. So this process has been going for about two years now, and I think it's beginning to bear fruit.
For example, this week, halfway on the morning journey to her pre-school, Jinaki started to fuss and cry in the back of the car and say she wanted to have a home day.
"Why do you want to stay home today, sweetie?" I asked.
"Because I will miss you, Daddy," she answered, too glibly.
"I will miss you too," I said. "But is there anything wrong in school? Did anything happen?"
"Elizabeth pushed me," she said, and so the real reason for her reluctance came out. I mean, it may not be the case that anyone had actually pushed her, but there is usually some actual basis for any reluctance or other untoward behaviour. So I told her, as I had several times before, that if any child did something she didn't like, she should tell one of the aunties, or run away or, if neither of that worked, she could try pushing back.
"But pushing isn't kind," Jinaki said.
"No, it isn't," I said, and used the opportunity to push my own case. "But hitting your Daddy isn't kind either. So you shouldn't do that."
"But sometimes three-year-olds get angry with their daddies," she replied. Which is Jinaki's standard phrase when explaining any kind of behaviour she knows we don't like, from refusing to eat her egg sandwich to wetting the bed.
After two years, though, the practice of giving reasons is well inculcated. To be sure, she still considers "But I don't want to" to be the reason that trumps all other reasons. And she will make up reasons when she doesn't want to say what is really going on, as with the other child supposedly pushing her (because most if not all children seem to automatically adopt the attitude that what happens in school, stays in school).
Child psychologist Murray A Straus in The Primordial Violence writes: "When parents consistently use explanation and reasoning as a means of correcting and influencing the child, the side effect is likely to be a child who uses and may insist on explanation and reasoning. In the short run, this can be a problem because a child who uses and expects a reason and explanation for everything can be exasperating, even infuriating. However, whereas that behaviour may be exasperating from a child, it represents exactly the kind of behaviour that most parents want to see in their child as an adult."
So I hope and expect that continuing this practice will help Jinaki become the kind of person who doesn't do things without first considering the consequences, nor accept other people's acts or beliefs unless they can justify them. But, at this stage, it can indeed be exasperating.
KEVIN BALDEOSINGH