IN THE RING OF LIFE: THE DEO - REPELLANT

Sometime ago, we noticed that several mosquitoes found their way into our rooms every day. It was quite disturbing but we could do little about it because the landlords, my almost 4-year-old twins would enter the room and leave the door ajar. Until they are reminded to keep the door shut, it is the least of their worries. We mentioned buying a mosquito repellant to spray the room in their presence but we could not actually get to do it – early enough.

One evening, I returned from town and was welcome with a message from my son. He said, “Mommy, I used the spray in your room and grandma beat me. She beat sister too (referring to his twin sister) so she is sleeping”. Since I could not fully grasp the details, I asked my mother about what had really happened. She said, “Earlier this evening I noticed he was not in the room so I sent his sister to search for him. She left and also didn’t return. When I followed up, I realized that he had gone into your room and emptied the content of your deodorant spray. The place was filled with fumes as though it was smoke from a fire. I gave them some good beating and that is why the girl is sleeping. He is reporting himself to you to calm you before you will see for yourself, what he has done”.

What? I was uncertain how to express myself with the information so, I left to examine the damage. My son followed me into the room. I could smell the scent of the deodorant in the room, so I asked him, “Why did you touch the deodorant spray when I told you severally not to use it”. His response was “Mommy, the mosquitoes were in the room so I used the spray for all the corners so that they will not come again when you went out. I sprayed on all the mirror too”. Awwwww… I was not sure whether to praise his effort and thoughtfulness; give him another beating as a deterrent for wasting my deodorant spray and putting himself and his sister at risk of inhaling harmful chemicals; or educate him instead on the dangers of using such chemicals. I chose the last option and educated him instead. He felt remorseful and said, “Mommy sorry, I will not do that again”.

Few minutes later, he went out and returned with a big foam. I asked what he intended to use it for – he responded, “Mommy, I want to clean the spray from the mirror and the corners of the room”. I could only smile. Such adorable humans! Moments later, I informed his grandmother about the rationale behind his actions and she was surprised as she said, “well, he did not give me any explanation when I first caught him in the act”.

I gathered the following lessons from the incident:

1. As parents or guardians, it is important to understand the reasons why our children do what they do before reacting: There is a likelihood to only focus on the wrong things' children do without first understanding the motive behind their actions. Engaging my boy helped me appreciate his real intentions for the action which was actually thoughtful and not to upset me.

2. As parents or guardians, we need to always ensure that harmful items are put FAR away from the reach of children: In our ever-busy schedule, we may take for granted the need to keep potentially harmful items extremely far away from the reach of children. Although the deodorant spray was at a relatively far place, they could still reach it using some support like a chair. Before resting on our oars that we have hidden things away from children, we need to measure all probable means by which they can still reach them and take precaution to avoid similar incidents as in my experience.

3. As parents or guardians, we should not underestimate the reasoning ability of our children: Firstly, I didn’t expect my boy to reach the height where the deodorant spray was kept. Secondly, I did not imagine that he would take any initiative to help resolve the problem with the mosquitoes. While we may not always identify or even acknowledge it, children are intelligent beings and are able to rationally understand situations more than we may think. We need to be mindful of this and as much as possible in the early years teach them to know about how, when, why, where and what doing morally right things entail in life.

4. As parents/ guardians, we should be mindful of the conversations we have in the presence of our children: When we kept having the conversation about mosquitoes disturbing us, the children heard it. Even after some time, they still remembered it and eventually took the initiative to help resolve it. Perhaps, my boy had been considering likely ways to help address the problem since the first time he heard about the issue until he finally made the move to spray the room. Repeatedly, older people tend to engage in sensitive conversations in the presence of children with the assumption that they either do no listen or cannot understand the issues being discussed. This is a fallacy which must be worked on. Some children may even misunderstand certain situations and will end up feeling helpless or responsible. When they are unable to help resolve the situation, it could haunt them for a long period and if that is not discovered and addressed, it may ultimately have negative effects on them.

Children are special and unique beings who play a significant role in testing and teaching older people especially parents or guardians about realities of life. This may be in the form of virtues such as patience, responsibility, care, compassion, attentiveness, hope, resilience, courage, love among many others. Admittedly, children also have high potential to ignite difficult emotions such as pain, anger and frustration. Nevertheless, parents or guardians as well as older persons with children in their care need to exercise restrain when managing children with the belief that they also have good intentions and the best interest of the people they love and respect at heart.