Q: My 4-year-old son is so sensitive that he doesn't like being corrected or helped by other people and sometimes even by his parents. When people correct him, he thinks that they are finding faults in him and he immediately leaves the place or says that they are telling him the wrong thing. This annoys people who want to correct him for his good. When we try to correct him, either he starts crying or tells that “I am a bad boy!” It pains me to see my small son thinks so intensely. He is a very sensitive child from the beginning, but these days I am more worried because he would start going to kindergarten soon, and there he would have to follow whatever his teachers asks him to. I fear that he would start hating his school. We have been very reasonable parents. I stay at home and try to keep him engaged, play with him, take him out and spend quality time with him. How do I help him increase his self-esteem and be more tough, and not takes things to heart?

A:Even when we as parents do our best, for the child, meeting other children and learning to make friends is an important process. It is also a product of good socialisation. In other words, school will provide the variety of necessary experiences, where each child will find out that he is not the centre of the Universe. When you scold him, please do not use the expression, You have been a bad boy , but say that you have done a bad thing . He must learn that he is doing something, but that he is not the action itself. There is no way by which any parent can prepare a child for all the situations he is likely to confront. Some children are just more sensitive than others. If you have been reasonable and not over-indulgent, you have done your best. If it is possible, let him play with children of his age in and around the house. It sounds as if he is surrounded by adults who wish to instruct him on how to behave.