I was born and raised in both Pakistan and Kuwait. When I was a kid, my parents visited my uncles and aunts regularly. As a result of this, I think the best toys for a growing child are other children (friends or cousins), animals, earth and water. These are all naturally occurring and readily available.

I looked forward immensely to spending time with my countless cousins, young and old. It was the best gift I could have asked for as a child. I still remember the excitement I used to feel when told about the planned visits. Our most exciting times were playing together on a mountain of sand near a construction site, role-playing together or just being together - whether it is outdoors or indoors.
Large families, and having your cousins, parents, grand parents, uncles and aunts living close by, can be a great blessing. Relatives not only share the task of child raising but the more people, the livelier a child's world can become.

Isn't it interesting that a child can pick that up about the adult before an adult does?

Being the oldest of the three siblings gave me the advantage of adopting the role of the entertainer. So I had some exposure to entertaining kids and the playfulness it took to do the job. Yet, there were other things I struggled with when I had my first child. These were no small things;

• Striking a balance between love and discipline.  i.e. how can I love my son without loving too much? Is there such a thing as too much love? How can I discipline my son without being overly disciplinary and killing the joy?; and
• Controlling my anger when things did not go my way.

Children are so precious. Sometimes I think there should be compulsory workshops on this subject for everyone who wants to have kids. Words that come out of our mouths cannot be retrieved again, nor can our own behaviour; we can't know what effect it may have on the kids in future.

Like all fathers, I had to learn on the job. So far I've realised that if I go for a complicated solution, it won't work. The solution has to be simple and short.
So, in dealing with my son in a normal or difficult situation, I try to;

• Excite his attention to the things happening around him. The worms in the compost, the birds, the spiders, feeding milk to the neighbour's cat, sports on TV, stars and planes in the sky etc.
• Explain things to him in normal simple language.  I soon realised that he does understand and can also repeat it back to you.

From my experience, your fears, for example, a fear of spiders, will be relayed to him through your body language no matter how much you tell him not to be afraid. If I show fear when I have encountered the object of my fear, I have noticed that he becomes cautious of this object in the future. 

One thing I try to do is when he is playing is that providing he's not about to hurt himself seriously, I try to keep my mouth shut and give him that space to move around, explore and not feel that he is constantly being watched and corrected. 
When he throws a tantrum, I try to come down to his level and try to explain to him why I can't buy something for him or don't want him to do something. For example, a tantrum in a candy store for one too many candies would have me turn his attention to a rotting tooth picture that he noticed outside a pharmacy wall the previous day, or one of my own damaged teeth. I do accompany my explanations with some wonderful facial expressions and visual aids. The idea is to distract him with something else. By doing this I will have diverted his attention to something different. And yes, it has worked several times. In fact, I can't remember him ever rolling on the floor in a tantrum. But then again all kids are different.

Sometimes I do have to remember that if there is no need to deny him something, then don't deny it to him. Too much of ‘No, you cant have that or do that' will only make him realise the fact that you are simply mad. I think adults can be very unreasonable at times and children pick that up naturally and cling to people who are playful and easy-going.

I feel that kids are only doing what they know best, that is what they are programmed to do. A lot of the time they pick up some of our habits and we then we go on to criticise them for what we taught them. 

Isn't it interesting that a child can pick that up about the adult before an adult does?