The hidden talents of children

When you receive some management training (like I did), and consequently lose some common sense (did I have any?), you tend to think like a manager (a different kind of a species, altogether) every waking minute. If the sight of anybody not working makes you wince (so what if you as a manager, have nothing for them to work on), imagine the pain it causes to see a resource run around half naked without any task assigned to him. Yes, I am talking about a toddler/preschooler. If you ever had tried to assign tasks to a preschooler, you would have realized that preschoolers’ work-ethic and their view towards work assignments are very unprofessional. How do you deal with a subordinate who takes the task and its materials, shoves them in the toilet and pees on them? Very unprofessional. Now, anybody who knows me, knows how much I love kids. Oh they are such angels. Personally speaking, my daughter had always been very well behaved and highly disciplined child (wonder where she had learned to be that way?) but I have had the privilege of spending my days and nights with some of the notorious kids world has ever witnessed and this blog of mine is dedicated to them. My first brush with one such toddler is my niece, Rimi, who is doing her +2 now. And this blog is particularly dedicated to her. Following her close is my cousin, Rinki, who is in std. VII now. Both these girls have given me experiences, which when I recount even today, I shudder. But before I proceed, Rimi will always be very special to me as she was the first ever kid I came in close association with, and Rinki is a sweetheart. Coming back to the main purpose of this blog, if as an over optimist parent, you still want to make your child work for you, you need to get creative in your assignments and the motivation you provide to ensure their timely delivery. Here are a few tasks I can suggest:

Get her to make the shopping list:

Simply ask your kid, “We have bread and bananas, what do you want to eat?” He will list you all the items that you don’t have in the house.

Get her to take care of weeds:

If you have weeds in your yard and want to get rid of them, show your kid how to water plants using a hose. And tell her that the weeds need constant watering. Give her 3 days to kill the weeds by drowning.

Get her to mash food:

Leave the food you want mashed on the floor. Place a mallet next to it and remove yourself from the view. A few minutes later your food will be mashed along with a few other things in the room. Statutory warning: You may find it a little inconvenient to retrieve your food that is evenly spread across the room.

Get her to find the permanent marker:

If you ever fail to find the permanent marker, put a white shirt on your kid. Leave her in the room and wait for her white shirt to turn black with the marker ink. She has found your marker.

Get rid of annoying co-passengers:

If you are on a flight and the guy in the next seat is trying to act smart with you or making conversation while you are trying to stay quiet, softly tell your kid, “This uncle knows how to tell a male cat from a female cat”. You can even get some sleep while those two sort out the matters.

Get her to point out the right capacitor:

You are often in this situation where you have a bunch of capacitors in your hand but only one fits the circuit perfectly (I am assuming you are hopeless geek). Place the capacitors in front of your child. The one she puts in her mouth and chews is the one you want.

Get her to shred paper:

Just hand any paper to her and tell her that it is a very important paper. It will be in million pieces before you can even say “wait”.

Get her to find condoms:

If you forgot where you kept your condoms, leave your kid in the bedroom. She finds them every time without fail. In fact, he will find them much faster if there is another person in the room, like a friend or a cousin. (Now this one is suggested my a male friend of mine while I was discussing "kids" with him - am more surprised with him than his kid here - wonder what another person like friend or cousin is doing in his bedroom while he is on the look out for a condom??!!!)

This list can go on and on. Like for example, if you need to hang up on a phone call that has gone too long, then just go to the room where your kid is. The rest will be taken care of. And then, if you are looking for all lost pins, needles and coins, they can best be found by these little champs. Am sure, all the parents living day-in-and-out with toddlers can come up with many more items on this list. After all my list is a decade old!