This was an unusual assignment for me. Yalan was pretty clever, but was ungovernable; his parents had tried in vain to instil some kind of discipline in him, but failed. He would throw food about at meals, shout at his parents, swear at them and be abusive to them to the faces. He paid no attention to any attempts by them to teach him to how he was to behave. He was 12 years old and had been thrown out of his school. His parents simply did not know what to do, but a cousin of theirs had had a similar, but much less serious situation with their son and they had hired a tutor from Tutors from England and he had had considerable success with their son. 

I was hired not really as a tutor, but as a disciplinarian, someone to instil discipline in him. His parents had no suggestions as to how I was to go about this. 

Of course, when I arrived to live with the family, Yalan was manifestly hostile to me; he did not want to be disciplined and had no intention of allowing me to do so. 

So there I was, in a very difficult situation with a hostile “pupil” and parents who had no suggestions as to how I was to “tame” him. 

To their great surprise I made no attempt in the early days to discipline him at all. I just let him do what he wanted and he came to see me as a friend, almost a co-conspirator in his misbehaviour that we together transformed into shared mischief. Yalan came to like me very much; we played games together, especially squash, which I taught him and, in fact, it was through squash that I came to dominate him and change him. For he came to respect that I beat him at squash, although he did improve a great deal over the coming weeks. He looked up to me, because, no matter how much he improved, I still beat him. 

Once I had dominated him consistently he slowly came to respect me, followed my lead and did what I encouraged him to do. He became a changed person and his parents were amazed by the change in his character. 

His parents asked me to go back a year later for a month and I found Yalan unchanged – he had in no way reverted to his original bad-tempered self. 

It was certainly an unusual assignment, but one that I immensely enjoyed, as it was patently so successful. LJ