Yesterday, one of my friends left her 3year old son at my place with my daughter. The stay was not intentional. He saw a completely new set of toys & decided to explore them! It was only after 10 mins that the child realized that his mom was serious about leaving him & going out to finish her errands. And the moment he realized that, he started crying. Being used my daughters screeching wails, I didn't notice any difference in the beginning. It took a couple of mins to ring the bell - He was crying. Then I hugged him and tried my best in explaining that his mom will be back soon & that I'll try to call her & ask her to rush back.
All this while, my daughter was watching me. When he stopped crying, she took him to her room & started playing. After a while, he enquired about his mom again. And, this time, my daughter handled it wonderfully. I have to say, her approach was more systematic. First she explained, where his mother is currently(gone out for doing some stuff). Then she explained, why she had to go out(like, lets say, she has to go out to get cookies). Next came the consequences IF his mom doesn't do whatever shes doing rite now(like, if she doesn't buy cookies he won't be able to have). And, to my surprise, he didn't ask for his mom after this real long explanation.
I don't know, if its the mom in me speaking, but .... I was thoroughly impressed. She applied the same approach for helping him out with new toys - how the toy works, what you need to do to make it work, etc.
Epilogue ...
They played happily for almost an hour. After that, their interests in each other & the toys died out and were on the path to become normal children(ie. fighting/blaming mode). Luckily, his mom reached before an actual fight started out :)
Special Thanks to J.Ammai & Kutti's Achan who takes time in explaining things to my daughter :)
