The Luke Chronicles: Playing with Emotions

One thing I love about fatherhood is that you get to bully your kids anytime, anywhere you like. When it comes to teasing my kids, I am a true expert. Nique, for example, can easily succumb to the power of suggestions. Tell him anything and he would believe it. Ash on the other hand, is easily manipulated everytime you 'fake' your crying. But when it comes to Luke, it is totally a different ball game. Luke is a bit more steady and guarded when it comes to his emotions. You don't easily break him and he also doesn't easily believe things either. His power of observation is so strong that you have to be really, really consistent to make him succumb to your suggestions.

Just now, I manage to break him :) As we are preparing to go to Jakarta, I have constantly told him that he will not be joining us because of his poor exam results (well Luke is not as academically gifted as Nique). I started to pull him into the game about 5 weeks ago. First, I started by showing that I didn't buy him his plane tickets (which I actually did). Next, I kept on repeating that I shall be leaving him with either at my sister house or his nanny's place. Every now and then, I would drop little hints that he will not be joining us for the trip. The thing is, he was pretty cool about it. Throughout the period, he did not show much feelings towards what I said. I must say, he seems to be taking the news a bit too well.

My moment of triumph came just now. Because he likes to tease Nique, I finally told him that I would consider bringing him along if Nique allows him to. I would have thought that Nique would be taking is time to see if Luke would be nicer to him but Nique, being the soft-hearted kid he is, has finally admitted to me that he would like Luke to join us for the trip as well. I guess my plan hit a little setback. Then this afternoon, I told Luke that since Nique is okay with him joining, he still has to beat me in Foosball three times in a row in order to earn the trip. I can see how determined Luke was in trying to win the game. In fact, he won the first two games fairly easily (actually the kid is darn good!). The third game was a closer tie. The suspense was as good as any Hindi movie that you would normally watch. Every time, Luke scored a goal, I would score mine right after. At the score of 5-5, Luke finally manage to pull away when he got the next 2 consecutive goals (by the way, you need to score 9 goals to win the game). I guess, nerves has finally got the best of him when, out of nowhere, I managed to score 4 goals in a row. As he conceded defeat, his eyes started to well up. I, on the other hand, began to rub it in with my gloating. He finally broke down in tears. I think he was truly, truly disappointed. His cousin, Ann who happen to be around began to console him but he was truly heartbroken.

As I when up to my room and tell the tale to my wife, I began to think that maybe this time I went a bit too far. My wife pointed how childish I have been to pull a stunt like that on a nine-year old. I guess she's right too. I was more interested in breaking his 'macho' persona without realising that how much I have hurt him. After I have finished typing the final sentence of this entry, I would go down and offer to have another foosball game with him and this time, I would let him win this time. My wife told me why can't I just tell him that he can go, without going through this silly mind games. I told her......"Where's the fun in that?!"

I really, really ought to be ashame of myself!!