Don’t Reward Your Good Work

Priya was worried. She got her test papers and she scored poorly. As she was waiting for her mom to pick her up, everything that could happen in the following days was playing in her mind. Mom would be angry, some privileges could be withdrawn. extra classes, extra scolding from tuition teacher and class teacher and what not? Her chain of thoughts was interrupted by the arrival of her dad. She did not expect him and she did not know how her dad will react. As expected the first question that her dad asked was how did you score in your exams. Priya started to sweat a little.  She announced her marks and her father went silent. There was an eerie silence for some time.

Soon she realised that they have deviated from their regular route. She did not dare to ask him. She prayed to God, ‘God, Help me this time alone.” The car entered the swanky mall of their locality and they went inside. entering the mall she noticed that her dad was calmer now. Her dad took her to an ice cream parlour and asked her to order ice-creams. Both were having the ice creams. Priya brought some courage and asked. “ Dad, did we come here to meet someone?” He smiled and replied, “No, I brought you here to give you some treat”.

Priya was perplexed now. What is he saying? Is he toiling with my emotions? Is he mocking me? He also asked her, “Priya, What do you want, Movie or Dresses?” She couldn’t take it anymore. “Dad, why are you doing this?” Is this a joke? Her dad smiled and said.

Priya, You are a mature kid. Regarding your marks, by now you would have understood what exactly went wrong and how to do course correction. The next few days are going to be very tough for you. Don’t worry, I have full faith in you and I am sure that you will correct your mistakes. I am just trying to cheer you. Priya felt as if she was flying. A big burden was removed from her tender shoulders.

When our child succeeds we celebrate. Many times that would not be necessary. The success itself could be giving them immense satisfaction. But when a child fails we burden them more with punishments. Failures brings tamasic guna. They would be reeling under immense pressure. Self-doubt, fear and many other negative emotions will be burdening them. That is when we need to cheer them up with what they like. Give them all that they like, Food, dresses, books, movies. These are Rajasik in nature and will help them in coming out of Tamasik guna resulted because of failure.

This is not just for children, even for us, our spouse, our employees, our friends or for that matter anyone. When our day was full of mistakes. Let’s treat ourselves to our favourite food. When our spouse fights with us, treat her with a vacation. When our friend comes to us with his family issues, take him to a movie. For that matter, whenever anyone comes to you to share their failure, worries and losses just shout – Treat, Treat, Treat.