joking about when he is back at home. However, to the child it was a rude violation of his trust in the parent. The memory of the experience and the embarrassment of the spectacle he had created in public would linger on.
The erosion of a child's trust in parents produces ripple effects in significant degrees in his love, loyalty and obedience for the parents over a period of time. These are apart from other emotional aspects of his relation to them if his trust is misused or made fun of more as a practice than a rare exception.

I was in the reception room of a dental clinic waiting for dental attention. Seated opposite me at the other side of the wall, among other patients, was an elderly lady ! with a small boy who appeared to be her grandchild.

Strangely the child seemed to be taking undue interest in me with his large inquiring eyes. After some time, seeing his interest yet undiminished, I directed to him a sign . of "come over and say hello" as if to break the proverbial ice. I had thought that with
that signal the scrutiny by the vigilant child would cease.

Say Hello.
Apparently, the gesture did not escape the sharp eyes of the grandmother. She asked the child who was all the time standing by her side, to go over and say hello to "uncle" and then showed visible anger and embarrassment when he would not budge despite her repeated prodding. Her sense of granny pride for the child's obedience was being publicly challenged. Seeing that I brought on myself anew and bigger situation I had not bargained for, I intervened.
I spoke up to the lady in the presence of all who were stealthily playing spectators to the small drama, presumably to kill the boredom or divert their mind from the dread that lay ahead in the dentist's chair. I assured the grandmother that the behaviour of the child was perfectly natural. He being on guard would not want to approach someone who was a stranger not only to him but also to her; and that would come only from a child who was alert and healthy in mind. Being alert must not be misconstrued as being shy.

Self-preservation.
The child obviously trusted his grandmother, but then he trusted his strong sense of self-preservation even more. Children's nature is to be wary of strangers and this serves as an instinctive protection for the children who are vulnerable because of their age. Parents should not teach their children to compromise their instinctive shield which is useful when they are individually alone outside their home.
The lion cub raised as a pet and taught to trust human-beings with the instinct of self- preservation seriously compromised is never let back into the wild jungle. In the same context, parents should leave the child's strong sense of self-preservation intact.

They should not use his trust in them to disturb his inherent natural behaviour of being wary of strangers. In fact, the parents' fulfilment of one important of love of love for their child is the ability to retain the child's trust in them. It may not be as simple as said. No wonder, marriage and the upbringing of children in the home require as well-trained a mind and as well disciplined a character as any other occupation that might be considered a career! It seems as if parents have to go a school to graduate in childrens up-bringing, such important is this subject in the human life!

Let me end with this note: There is little for the parents to do
about the length of childhood of their children but can do much
about its width and depth. It is rightly said that men are what
their parents made them.