Cucuk.

"Tengok tu, doktor tu. Adik tak duduk nanti doktor cucuk."

"Doktor, tengok ni xxxx nakal sangat. Cucuk dia sikit!"

Parents, older siblings, aunties and uncles, grandmothers and grandfathers.

Please.
Stop this scare-mongering.

It doesn't help us, and it doesn't help you.
Sure you don't care how it doesn't help us...
But let me tell you why it doesn't help YOU.

Children are innocent. Naive.

When you promise them something, they expect it to be delivered.
Undelivered, they feel betrayed. They acknowledge- the more you do it- that what you say is rarely true. They tend to mistrust your words.
Hence they become belligerent and ignore your threats, because they already fathom that your threats are never carried out.

Get it?
Your child can become stubborn because of what YOU say; what YOU deliver.

Saying I- or my colleagues- will come over to poke them whenever they misbehave is clearly a threat never to be carried out. I don't know about your beliefs, but we only poke when we have to; we don't poke if your child misbehaves or throws a tantrum, no matter how tempted we get.
Sorry, we're only human.

So don't threaten your children using us.
It makes them mistrust us.
More importantly, no matter how small, it plants tiny seeds of mistrust on you, too.

And you're the person they will see for years and years after they leave the hospital.


"Adik kena makan, minum banyak-banyak. Kalau tak doktor mai cucuk." - this is sorta true, actually.
But don't force them to eat if they're feeling nauseous and tend to throw up. Rather, encourage them to eat, no matter how small. A few spoonfuls of porridge is also fine. Start slow.


In the end, if we decide they need an intravenous drip, or have to take their blood to run some tests, it's for their own good. Despite what you may think, we do NOT enjoy poking your children, or bleeding them. I have yet to meet colleagues or seniors who enjoy this task. We do it because we must; because it is our job. We are not experimenting on your children.

When you cucuk your children to be terrified of our presence, you make our jobs more difficult.
Thus making our job more slow.
Thus making your child's healing process slower.

And when calming your child takes up more time, that means time taken from other patients waiting, too.
And the burden- that dosa- is on you.

How's that for scare-mongering?


Please, don't cucuk your children to be scared of us.