My wife and I read in the recent ‘Child’ magazine that a good way to encourage your child in to reading is to pay them. Paying them one rupee per page was suggested. I thought why not my older daughter so I promptly explained the game how it is to be played and she was all excited. Even if she wanted to do it for money, magazine said that they will slowly develop the habit of reading.
Immediately after that I came to Delhi to attend a training program on Child Rights and Protection. One day I called home and talked to Lydia to check to see how her reading was going. I wasn’t really prepared for what she said. She said “Daddy, I earned 110 rupees already”. My mind was like “Ummm…..well….you can stop reading now” but I complimented her and told her to continue to read as much as she can earn.
As a passing comment I told her “You can try and reach 1000 rupees by Christmas so that you can buy something for yourself. Her reply was “No daddy, I don’t want to buy anything for myself because I am saving money to build a new HOPE House and I want to take care of thousands of children there”. I couldn’t believe my ears but I was filled with pride and joy about my girl.
Now I want to help her reach that goal fast so my mind was like “well she can practice piano to earn, she can eat vegetables to earn money, she can be nice to her sister to earn money, and study well to earn money”. I decided not to do that because I don’t want her to get into the habit of asking for money for everything but I do want to help her reach that goal fast. Any ideas??
1 comment:
All I can say is :)
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