Don’t Be Too Logical With Your Kid

Avoid being too logical with your kid. I have committed this mistake and results are not flattering at all. If you are trying to be logical with your kid most of the time, it won’t cut much ice with the kid. Here I am not saying that you should not explain cause and effect or action and consequences to the kid. What I am trying to convey is, don’t overdo it. I have overdone it and ended up being frustrated. It works nicely in the classroom and for the textbooks. But try something else in real life.

If you rely on logic and reasoning excessively, your are not going to get the desired response from your kid. See, what rational approach does to a child’s psyche:

Kid Finds it Boring and Dry: Take a simple example, my kid is asking for a glass of water, and I am working at that time. I tend to explain to the kid, why I can’t give her water right now and why she has to get up and fetch it herself. It continued on incessantly for many years and she couldn’t figure out for a long time, why Mamma can’t get up! Sometimes I kept on explaining for more than 10 minutes. At the end both of us, ended up feeling frustrated. And no one felt wiser after all those explaining. Now I tell her clearly, “Here is the Jug, here is glass and here are your hands! Use all the three!”

You become Predictable for Kids : When you use too much logic, you become predictable for your kid and he / she won’t enjoy your company. They will use worlds like, ‘boring’ , ‘not so cool’ , ‘uncool’ for you. My kid even stopped enjoying my own made up stories, saying, “In the end your story will tell, what’s the right thing to do! Tell me some humorous stories.” Its her way of saying, your stories are too logical. I can predict the end! I tried hard to come up with funny stories, stretching my boundaries. Try to solve your kid’s problems in funny ways to convey your message, so that the kid come running back to you because you are capable of surprising him / her.

After A While Kid Will Stop Paying Attention: If you continue with your too logical behaviour, your kid will stop listening to you after a while. Mine did. She knew if she had done A thing, I would take route B. It was like an ongoing repetitive thing for her. Like my stories, my behaviour too was quite transparent for her. And my logical methods lost all the relevance and effectiveness. My utterances were like water on duck’s back. Being too logical is good in academics but not in a kid’s life. They have imaginations, questions, curiosities etc. If you keep on being logical, you are discouraging him / her being a child itself.

No Place For Fun And Spontaneity: Childhood means fun and spontaneity. Don’t incorporate too much logic and predictability into it. If you want your kid to be open and communicative with you bring joy and fun into his / her life. If you want to explain something, use fun and humor. Kids appreciate it and they keep coming back to you with more questions and curiosities. My kid use to ask for something incessantly, till I give in. Now I say, “If I don’t do what you are asking for, first you will yell, then stomp your feet in the last you will cry! But still I am not going to budge.” Therefore by all means, use logic with kids but in interesting manner.

Parents End Up Feeling Frustrated: You you bring too much logic into your parenting, you will end up feeling frustrated. Kids won’t respond well to logic and explanation part. They don’t have enough data to foresee the results of your actions so they won’t understand your logic and explanation part well. In the end you end up feeling demoralized as if you have met a massive wall. In fact, don’t bring up too much logic and explanation into any relationship. Let the fun, spontaneity and simple joys of life rule your relationships to maintain its freshness.