Learning Responsibility Through Family Dynamics : หน้า 85/207

Being immature and the youngest, I would sometimes go off on my own and not help out. Why not? In the mornings, I would shoot at birds and go fishing with my friends. In the afternoon, I would panic when I realized that the task might not be done in time. Oh no! If my sisters couldn’t finish it, we all wouldn’t have dinner! So, I would rush to help them. In the meantime, I would please my sisters in every way to make sure that they would not report my mischief to our father. I learned how to be nice, polite and say sweet things, while I pitched in. Had I not learned this quickly, we would face these consequences: 1) Dinner would not be served for us that evening. In addition, we would have to finish our tasks at night by lamplight. 2) If my sisters reported my mischief to my father, I would be the only one punished and whipped. So, I made sure to speak nicely and politely with my sisters to keep them happy. Quite simply, we had to accept the responsibilities together. If we fought, we wouldn’t finish and we’d all be in deep trouble. So, we learned to negotiate and automatically became nice with each other. The problem with your sisters is that there isn’t any housework to be done; your lives are too comfortable. To learn a lesson, they have to be hungry once in a while; they have to struggle and then help and rely on each other. Too much comfort in your family has led to problems among the children. In this situation, the damage has been done. I recommend you to leave this task to your parents. As the oldest daughter, you should give them this advice and lend a hand when they need it: 1. Tighten the household budget. Don’t allow for too much cash flow in the household. Don’t give these feeding sisters a large allowance. This will force them to help each other. 2. Assign a lot of housework to do together. Although they are upset and preoccupied, they have to communicate in order to get the job done. The communication will loosen up the tension and ill feelings toward each other. This method yields good results. 3. Discipline is required for young children. If you have good reason, you don’t have to be afraid that your children will run away from home. Young children aren’t daring enough. A whipping stick is still necessary for discipline. BUT, parents must know how and when to use it. Parents must teach their children when they whip. The stick is not for beating your child to death!