Viswanathan K's Thoughts

When my 6 year old goes to sleep at night, one of us usually (but not always) pats her to sleep. When my wife was out of the country recently, I did that every night. Which is why I was so surprised when my wife told me this incident. After my wife returned, my daughter sensed her “missed you” + guilty feeling. And once there is blood in the water, my daughter, like any kid, moved in like a shark for the kill, milking the guilt for all it was worth. One night while being put to bed, my daughter asked my wife to pat her saying, “While you were gone, I had to pat myself to sleep. And since I can’t pat myself on the back, I had to pat myself on the thigh instead”!!! Whoa! Wait a minute, what had I been doing all those days, I thought. I am sure this isn’t the first (or last) time that she’ll be cooking up such stories. The more exaggerated they are, the more fun they are to concoct… and to hear. But I would still have loved to say and do what Calvin’s dad did in the strip below:...

Ever noticed that the morals of many stories meant for kids are way, way beyond their comprehension? Even worse, the wording of the moral is such that no kid could possibly assume that it applies beyond the one scenario described in the story! A few examples to prove my point: -          “Those grapes are sour” : This reaction to what we can’t get comes as we grow up, certainly not to kids. -          “A stitch in time saves nine ”: Long term thinking. Like that’s what kids do! -          “Boy who cried wolf” : Track record matters. Like kids can understand that. -          “Who will bell the cat?” : Planning is easy if you don’t worry about the execution part. Don’t you need life experience to get that? I could go on, but you get the point… Recently, my 5 year daughter, who’d been part of a pack of brats on the s...