I’m not sure how many of us have seen the “calm down” video online that went viral. It’s about a little boy who probably disobeyed his mum and she threatened to punish him. What we saw was a weeping boy negotiating his case with his mum and unlike most motivational speakers today, his emotions were real, he wasn’t negotiating from a “I-heard-it-somewhere” point of view, but from an experiential one.
In my words, ‘Mum, I know you are upset about my bad behaviour. I admit I’ve done this severally and gotten away with it because it’s you nah (in Nigerian pidgin we’d say, ‘nah we we’). But I also know that if you relax, you won’t want to punish me, after all, I’m your loving son. Have you forgotten that you love me? That’s why you pardoned me the previous ones.”
In my words, Mum goes, ‘That’s why I need to carry out the punishment this time because you know my weakness of love towards you and you have been using it as an escape. Not anymore.’
‘I can see this first skill didn’t work, mum. How about you relax on the chair, not in the usual style, try out my method (and he demonstrates what he means, all the while sobbing), you will feel a lot better.’
I had a wonderful time enjoying his conversation even in the midst of his tears with his mum. The part that almost annoyed me, was when I heard that certain people were planning to take the mother up for saying she will punish her child. These persons or groups seem to have forgotten the many serious issues of child rape, abuse, kidnaps etc going on, the domestic battery and violence, the problem of depression from loss of work and no money or lack of proper health care that has allowed many treatable patients pass on to the other side untimely.
With the mighty logs in their eyes, they have left the more important things needing activist attention to disturb the net over a mother that recorded her private negotiation session with her son and put online. If she wanted to punish him, she would have done so without recording it and none of us would know what took place in her home. Apparently, he always makes her these kinds of promises and doesn’t keep them and if she shares the story outside, we won’t believe the young-man is good with negotiation, so she decided to play her home video outside.
If you don’t have anything to do, come I’ll point you in the right direction. Children of these days don’t need to be taught certain skills but encouraged to use it for greater good.
When I told my son to cut our video call, he refused and asked me to do it, I refused too. When his grandmother offered to cut it from his end, my one-liner 8-year son said to her, “that’s inappropriate!” Grandma, went her way o!
It’s #FreedomFriday, what are you on about? Like my mum used to say, “cool ya heart temper!” LOL
@imanikel 07082020 Frances Kelvin Otung
imanikingblog 