Handling Toddler-dom

Jakjak asked to be brought to a play place in Terminal 3. It's actually just a toy store, but they have a Tomica playset on display that kids can play with. It looks like you would have to buy your Tomica car from the shop to play with on the track, and that was proving to be an expensive hobby. So this time, we decided to bring our own (properly labeled with Jakjak's name at the bottom, just in case).

It's not a difficult place to play in, just that sometimes, kids think that the cars are free to play with. With Jakjak however, things can get different.

He is six years old now, and we think that he is mature enough to think on his own. He probably is, because he had been quite nice in dealing with his peers even a few years back. He is quite happy to share his toys if he feels like it (we probably already lost quite a number of his toys this way), and is quick to tell other kids off when they snatch things away from him. He doesn't get mad, nor does he get into fights like some children do when they get intimidated. He simply asks for his toy back explaining that it's his. If they don't give it back, he puts a little force in taking it back, and then cools off by bringing the toy back to me (or mum) and we walk away for a few minutes. Later on, he's back playing merrily like nothing happened.

We do think that there are instances that kids grow up faster than others and that there are stages in their lives that they live through as "kids". With Jakjak, we just think that he may have skipped that stage of being a "me" person. Ok, maybe not 100%. But when he was at that stage, it was brief, and it was mostly only to us (you know, he just takes things from mum and dad and won't share things with us - which he does not do too often to others). Oh, and his cousin, but we always figured he was just getting back at him for all the quarrels that they had.

Bringing kids up can be an interesting journey. And while there are no right or wrong ways to bring up children (this is subjective, of course), there are methods that work for different types of children. It's the parents' job to find which works and which doesn't. And this can be a very tedious process as these methods have variations and may only work at certain times. It's frustrating at times, but very rewarding once you get the hang of it.

We did our best not to hold back on Jakjak as best as we can with toys and the like. This was governed by a couple of things. Would he learn something from it? Is it worth the price? Would he grow with it? Would dad have fun with it when Jakjak is not using it? We usually scratch that last criteria. Honest. So, even if we went to toy stores and look at the toys (we even spend good to a few minutes testing the sample units), we don't normally buy toys. On occasion, Jakjak would come back to the same toy for a couple of visits, that is usually a sign that he really, really likes something. That's when we buy. In time, he got used to not buying toys. And because of that attitude, he started to treat receiving toys as a surprise, and he became more appreciative of things at the same time. We had just taught him about gratitude, and we didn't even know it.