Doctor will give you injection: Expert decodes Nakuul and Jankee Mehtas take on fear parenting
Along with his wife, Jankee Mehta, he reflected on how tempting it can be to use fear to stop children from demanding chocolates or throwing tantrums. “How many people have said, ‘Don’t eat chocolate, your teeth will get spoilt,’ ‘The doctor will give you an injection,’ ‘I’ll call the police’,” they said on the podcast. Acknowledging that “fear works very fast,” the couple argued that quick compliance doesn’t necessarily make it healthy. “Every time I make my child work in fear, what am I teaching them? That doctors are scary, food is scary, that adults control them with fear,” they said.Instead, they advocated for calm, consistent boundaries. “The answer is to have boundaries with consistency… We eat chocolate sometimes, not every time. And yes, there will be a meltdown.” They added that the real challenge for parents isn’t saying no—it’s managing the crying that follows. “Sometimes children do get disappointed, but disappointment is not damage… Steady parenting does not mean my child will never cry. It means I will not make fear my default parenting tool.” DISCLAIMER: This article is based on information from the public domain and/or the experts we spoke to. But is this approach backed by science? According to Dr Pavitra Shankar, Associate Consultant, Psychiatrist, Aakash Healthcare, research suggests that while fear-based discipline may stop a behaviour in the moment, it is not an effective long-term parenting strategy.
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