Will my daughter imbibe characters of her teacher?

I was in my village for nearly a month. My daughter lived with my niece’s daugther who is just two months older to her and a five year old boy. All of them have different temperament – with my niece’s daugther being not that active but quite stubborn and powerful that she has to be given what she wants. My sister-in-law told me that she cries and never stops, until she has what she wants. The little boy is the quiet one most of the time, only talking when my niece’s parents are not closeby. The comments I received were that, she cries a lot but does not move around too much, while, my daughter does not cry much but moves around a lot. A totally worrying interest that my daughter has is her love for climbing and her lack of fear for strangers. She does show a little bit of hesitation at first but still, her father fears that she seems to be a little bit too active.

Now, my fear is not her active nature or her lack of fear for strangers. We are now back in Thimphu and she stays home with her grandma. But the way she talks has changed. Her accent has become a bit strong and rude. Especially when she is sleepy or not in the best mood, she asks people to leave, and her line is, ‘ji gi la kong cha na’, which means she beats up people. She has kept short hair till now but recently when my mother asked if she wants to cut her hair, she said, she wants to keep her hair long. (She moved her head, saying, ‘tsham ringbu thaan ne, onen phi le). Hoping you can get a picture of what she did.

When I was observing all this change in her, it suddenly dawned on me that if I am to send her to school, she is going to sink in different characters and behaviors. I was worried that she is going to imbibe the behavior of her teacher. And all I can do is pray that the teachers and friends surrounding her will be positive people. It even made me think that maybe it will be better to keep her home till she is six years old – just so she is not exposed to different people all at once. I think it has a danger of spoiling her in the sense of not allowing her own natural characters to sprout.