Would you shout at me, thatha ?

I feel the guilt every time I face this query from our 30-month old. And he raises this question whenever I don’t approve of something he has done. Such as, bringing his drink of Ovaltine to our bedroom; spilling water on the carpet (deliberately, at times), on his toy cars (his way of giving them a car-wash); wasting food; not holding my hand, while on way to the park; and umpteen other acts of mischief on a daily basis.

And every time this happens we have this little chat:

Would you shout at me, thatha?

Would you want me to, Siddarth?

No, I don’t want you to shout at me.

Point is, Siddarth doesn’t think anyone else in the house would shout at him. Mom and daddy have their way of disciplining him; a stern stare or a firm ‘No’ from them usually evokes positive reaction – ‘Don’t be mad at me, mommy’ is what he tells her.

My wife doesn’t believe in stern approach; she is usually given to appeasing him. The most she brings herself to telling him is, ‘you shouldn’t do that, Siddarth’.

To which, our friend, responds – ‘Why… why (shouldn’t I)?’

‘Because, mommy would be angry,’ she says.

His impression that I am the only bloke around the house who shouts stems from a noisy disagreement I had with my wife the other day; and Siddarth was a witness to the proceedings. And he thinks that if I do this to his patti, I could do it to him as well.

I don’t see how I can wipe out his impression that I am given to shouting at people. Now that I have to live with it, I use it as a deterrent. Nowadays, when I find that Siddarth is up to something disagreeable, I ask, simply, ‘would you want me to shout, Siddarth?’. The ploy usually works.

Siddarth doesn’t like raised voices. Just as he doesn’t like mommy getting mad at him, and daddy saying, ‘No’, to him.