Suka DIA tiru kita

What will you do when your children start imitating your actions and words? Some parents would say it will be incredibly cute to see them start to mimic those around them, mmm…YES but sometime NO, I feel a bit annoying. Hairee has started to copy many, many, many things that I said and what depressing me was whenever I 'marah' him, he would just laughing (annoying hah!) and copy what I said. Contoh bila I kata, Hairee don’t do it, he will just smile and repeat what I said, don’t do it (geram kan).

Other than copying my words, he also likes to imitate our actions, especially daddy’s actions. He follows us around the house which sometime I just purposely stop and stood by the wall, he would do the same (selalu I nak tergelak). He is freaking obsessed with BEN10 now, he loves to follow what BEN10 is doing especially like knocking at BEN10's watch on his hand and turned himself to an alien..hahaha..serious no kidding (itu belum lagi cite pasal action stunt sampai pecah bibir recently). Not only BEN10, BATMAN, he even do the action of how his teacher at school said to him, holding a stick (ruler) and scolded him and his friends (berlakon dia lah cikgu tu..hahaha).

I personally don’t like when someone I called pakcik said to me that ‘macam mana perangai kita, macam tu lah perangai anak kita’. But at one point I agreed too, why so? Well, imitation isn’t always useful to children if the parents are not conducting themselves appropriately. Example, if we sit around and watch television all day, you can expect the same from your child.

Bukan senang kan nak jadi parents kan, skrg dia ikut apa kita buat bila besar nanti making friends, they can start to pick up habits and traits from their peers that we are not so crazy about.

As I browsing the internet this morning I found some good advice to share

The first thing to realize is that this imitation is incredibly normal! I am sure if you got a bunch of parents in a room, they could tell all sorts of tales of children imitating a friend, taking on mannerisms of a teacher and other behaviors. I found with my own children that it was usually the peers who were the most different from them, the ones who were doing things that they knew they could never get away with in our family--those were the ones they tended to attempt to mimic. And that was part of why it bothered me so much!

There are a few ways you can approach this one: you can try to ignore it and hope that it passes; the less attention you pay to the child when he or she is mimicking and imitating peers behaviors you don't approve of, the more likely it is that he or she will get tired of it and stop. You can also set limits without focusing on the behavior too closely. For example, instead of saying something like: "I hate it when you act like Suzy! Stop that whining!" you can say something like: "Whining isn't welcome in this house, please use your words without whining." Keep in mind that while the behaviors and mimicry may be reminding you of another child, it is still your child's behaviors that you need to tend to. Making comparisons or blaming another child for "making your child" act this way doesn't really address the issue and it can be confusing to your child. You can stay neutral and decide if you want to ignore it or set a limit around what is acceptable in your house and what isn't. Keep in mind, that children will be copying and mimicking others throughout their entire childhood--this is how they experiment, rebel, and try out different traits and behaviors to find out what fits for them.