A couple of days ago, I met this young mother, blessed with a brat (as she wished to put it!), who would turn three in three weeks’ time. “How do I manage him?” was her exasperated query to me.
I enquired her about their normal day and about the parents’ role in the boy’s upbringing. It was heart-rending to hear that she had quit her job in order to give best parental care. But unfortunately, she had wrong definitions for the term ‘parental care’. To her, it meant ‘unconditional love’, she said. But she had extended this love to the extent that the child had become very demanding and he was actually bossing her. The child’s father, 
for his share lavished love through gifts, outings and junk food. To them, parental love had meant ‘yielding to the child’s ways’ and ‘keeping him happy always’.
The baby is now a little boy, intelligent, smart and clever, but at the same time destructive, hyperactive and over-protected.
Now the mission is to make the boy ‘normal’, friendly and socially acceptable.
I asked the mother to first adorn a positive frame of mind. “The age 3 to 4 is the molding period”, I reassured her, “It isn’t late yet”, I made her see reason in disciplining the boy. “It is part of parenting”, I needed to tell her, “to make the child comfortable anywhere to meet his basic physical needs: eating, sleeping as well as the toilet habits. He may be special to you. But you cannot isolate him from the society for that reason”, I asserted to her. When I found that she had realized it and that exactly was what had brought her to me, I asked her to set her priorities: “Shed your guilt” was the first rule. “Work tirelessly, systematically and cheerfully” was the second.
We worked out a contingency plan for the boy on a paced manner. We needed to work on
- his listening skills
- his attention span
- channelizing his abundant energy.
Improving listening skills
I suggested that she give him simple commands, in the play way: “Keep the pen on the table, walk to the corner of the room and jump three times.” The parent would clap thrice as a reward. The next command could be “gallop around the dining table four times and hide behind the bedroom curtains.” The parent would clap four times, then pause, clap four times all the while ‘hunting’ for the ‘lost’ kid. Such simple games would improve the hearing/listening skills involuntarily.
The parent could gradually proceed with reading small stories from a book which has several pictures, other than ‘telling’ stories and reciting simple rhymes.
The flash cards would do the magic in improving the listening skill further and extend it to the next phase: improving the memory and improving association of ideas that were already acquired.
Improving attention span
Engaging the child in the ‘adult’s’ world could do wonders: We may not see the fruits too soon, of course. Peeling the potatoes, staking old newspapers, carrying laundry to the washing machine, coloring pictures, 
counting cars of a chosen color while on the road… the list is endless and depends on each child’s area of interest.
Added benefit: improved patience levels, improved socialising habits, understanding the joys of listening/ coloring/ one’s own labor…
Channelizing abundant energy
Visit to the nearby park every evening for outdoor games is mandatory. Engaging the child in crafts as is done in the Montessori Method would keep the child occupied and happy. Permissible levels of video/computer games too is recommended, only if the parent is confident about pulling the child out of the machine after the permitted time runs out.
Extra advantage: A sense of contentment and gratification that would ring in some calmness is imminent, before the child could be directed to the next useful activity - assisting in gardening for example.
Animal lovers say: ‘There are no ‘bad’ dogs, only ‘bad’ masters. Shall we now say: ‘There are no ‘bad children’, only ‘bad parenting’?