and independent judgment. Such mind will not easily be susceptible to the out- side or alien influence especially in the present age of electronic media which is employed to control the mind of the viewers and manipulate "public opinion" to suit the establishments with vested interests. With mind shielded, values remain intact and decisions pop up prompt and sound.

In Two Hands.
With the rein of mind tight in one's own two hands, the child when adult, will not waver or be fickle in making important decisions judiciously. He will not borrow for himself decisions from others who can never put themselves squarely in his place; will never take refuge in the false safety of a status quo and leave matters unresolved simply because to him, to take the initiative of making decision is to gamble.

The passage of this life is punctuated with problems. When a problem is born approach it to dictate your terms before it grows big enough to approach you and dictate its terms while looking down on you with your back to the wall. But that calls for an immediate and bold decision-making capacity. Good many people lack it because they as children were not allowed to build it up. They were not taught to think.

So engage the child in the exercise of decision-making on matters that concern him, though he should fully know that the final decision is the parents'. Would he prefer a school bus with a larger seating capacity or smaller and why? A lunch box to the school or money for purchase from the school canteen and why? Should he choose a desk right in front tomorrow when he, with other students, moves to a promoted class? Would he want his bed placed this way or that? These are only examples and there arise a number of occasions for such decision-making.

Result Is Stupendous.
The result is stupendous in terms of fast thinking and self-confidence. The parents will often find the child coming up with certain requests in which there are options and he has already considered all of them and preferred one with ready reasons, even if the reasons are weak or bad. This is true as the child grows up.

A child so trained, when faced with a proposal from his teenage friends for a leisure programme out, which does not seem quite alright, will say: "No" on his own authority instead of the meek: "No, my parents will not approve of it".

The exercise will naturally include the situations where the child will consider also the economic options with a view to saving money. This is because in the course of the engagement in the exercise of reasoning and decision-making the issue of money will be surfacing and he will have learnt in some degrees the discipline in money management.

A child who has not been raised to think and therefore fails to do reasoning invites emotions to help and fill the gap. As adult, he is likely to make worse decisions for himself more through emotions than reasoning. The road to hell in this life is paved with emotional decisions!

Parent's Fright Frightens.

The capacity for well balanced thoughts in a child does not let emotions and fantasies cross the bounds.

Frustration and restlessness in a person in the face of a challenge or trial can spell a disaster where success was otherwise possible from a composed mind and faith.

The parents who are prone to excessive emotional reactions are bound to infect their child who is always observant and tends to learn and copy from how the parents react in various circumstances. A tranquil mind yielding to frustration has to be only a momentary phase and the mind is immediately recomposed. The child has to be demonstrated this by examples even where the parents themselves are good in restraining their emotions at the time of an emergency.

What often happens however, is quite the opposite. The child continues to whimper tearfully in a state of scare, despite the reassuring words from the mother, when he sees fresh bright crimson blood still oozing under the white bandage. It is not the bleeding but the initial frenzy of fear and alarm of the mother when he cut his finger
that gave him a real scare.

It is quite alright for the parents to react practically the way they normally do in attending to an emergency but strictly without showing the unnecessary or excessive emotional reaction in the presence of the child. Where valid and due, the emotions should be subdued deliberately to impart a long-term-effective message to the child. It is a part of teaching the child to think.