I was at the Delhi airport last night returning from the US, and was waiting for my luggage to arrive at the carousel when suddenly a 5-year old girl let out a shriek and began wailing. It seems as though she got her finger caught between the luggage cart and the carousel, leaving her with a fairly deep and wide cut across her thumb. Her mother instantly rushed to her aid, and after realizing the wound was not severe, proceeded to give her a slap in the face. She then scolded her and picked her up in her arms, as the child sobbed incessantly.
I dashed over to the help desk and got someone to come with a first aid kit (I was suprised that the airport folks at IGI had one and got it so quickly). They cleaned her thumb and put on a band-aid and everyone got back to their business of looking for their suitcases.
But one thing kept sticking in my mind: “What was the need of that slap?” It was bad enough that the girl injured herself–apart from the frightening sight of the blood, it probably hurt her a lot. And even if the mother had warned the girl not to do whatever she was doing that was to soon mangle her digit, there was no justification for why she had to wack her in the face.
The pain of the accident would be enough to teach the child to be more careful next time. As far as the mother’s response, in my eyes, there could have been two valid reactions: 1) to comfort her and show sympathy, or 2) not to comfort her, but rather, speak to her in a neutral way, not being overly sympathetic, but getting the finger taken care of and explaining in a matter of fact way that the accident happened because she hadn’t been listening to what her mother was telling her.
Keep in mind–this was a well-educated mother–at least academically. You would figure she should know better and should have been more sensitive to her daughter’s needs. But experience has shown me that good parenting can not be correlated to financial status.
Moral of the story: don’t add insult to injury. Kids will learn effectively from their own mistakes. Your presence, level-headedness, and consistency will go a lot further than sarcasm and “told-you-so” type of retorts.
