A doctor, teacher, manager, engineer, etc. you name it. A parent is a parent no matter what job he does. In other words, your job title does not really matter, you could make one of these top mistakes as an innocent parent who only wants to help.
1. Comparison
The foremost purpose of the comparison is to generally discover similarities or differences between two things. And the reason a person weighs two things is usually to find the better one.
Yet, it does not appear to be so when a parent compares his child to a sibling or schoolmates. Parents tend to judge, criticize, scold and even humiliates when comparing their kids with others. The way they compare does not provide any help to the kids and usually makes it even worse. You would, then, end up seeing discouraged, depressed and frustrated kids.
If parents continually do this habit of comparison with no goal at all, kids start rejecting their parents and people they are being compared to. Then, what is the most agreeable thing to do? Simply, just stop comparing. Find out your child’s weaknesses instead and try to be helpful.
2. Blaming
How would you feel if someone keeps blaming you for your failures even if you know it is totally your mistake. You would feel uncomfortable, inadequate, incompetent and worst of all reluctant to continue doing new things and striving for better.
Further, it is more damaging for children as they are yet to develop their personality and still building up their character. Instead of criticizing your child, discuss with him the steps that drove him to the failure. In this way, you would not only come up with a solution for the dilemma but also, guide him the way to analyze and resolve his future difficulties or to determine the root causes of his failures.
And most importantly, make yourself part of the failure by responding like ‘I guess I could be a much more help’. You would not lose anything but this would make you even more valuable and helpful. It is just like a leader who blames himself first before his team members.
3. Indulging
This is usually observed with the parents who had a childhood with limited access to toys etc. All they think is to satisfy their children so that they would not have a miserable childhood and feel impoverished like them.
There is no harm with this idea unless it is all planned very well and children receive what they like gradually not all at once.
You might be an affluent businessman still your child may be unhappy. Or, you may be having an average life and your child may be very joyful. It really depends on how you try to please your child. If you think you can make your child happy with all sorts of expensive toys etc. you could be mistaken.
Then, what? Do not buy everything at once. Try to give something as a reward by finding reasons for it. Keep asking this question whenever you want to get something to your child; Is there a reason for that? Would What I buy spoil my child?
4. Fail to Track
How often do you visit your child at school? Or, the question should be ‘do you only visit your child when his marks get lower or there is a problem? Why is there a need for a regular visit?
Well, there are some parents who visit the school so often that one may think of them as school personnel. This sort of parents could be disturbing and may even make their children feel under pressure. This is not the way a parent should visit the school.
And, there are parents who are too busy, tired or have a satisfaction of completing their responsibility by registering their child at school. They think this is the only responsibility they have towards their child’s education. Both scenarios have no benefits.
Visit your child when you feel that your child is started to get lost in his studies and need help. At some of your visits make sure you see your child and make him feel that you are there to support him not to find out his problems. And make some of your visits invisible to your child so he would not think that you over visit him.
5. Advising
In your opinion, which of below could have a stronger impact on you?
a) someone who always advises you to read the book and keeps talking about the benefits of reading.
b) someone who you usually see reading, carrying and buying new books.
Yes, the correct answer is choice B, congrats!
In today’s world, children, teenagers, almost all people had enough in listening to the advice of others. What is needed is role models, people who do more than they say. A smoking father would find it extremely difficult to convince his son not to smoke. A mother who keeps watching television telling her daughter to study hard would be ineffective.
The saying in English “Action speaks louder than words” is a good example for all of us. By doing, you do not only set a good example but also make your child believe in yourself and that it is something doable, not so challenging or impossible.
