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When a child appears in the family, parents, no doubt, want to give him all the best. But how to distinguish this «best» from the really necessary and useful for the development of the child’s personality and abilities?
In psychology, in matters of child-parenting, it is generally accepted that at each stage of a child’s life, the parent gave him everything he could in that situation.
Such an idea helps to solve many problems in the relationship between children and parents, especially when already adult children live with claims that they were given little or not …
Where do such claims come from?
Often parents want not only to give their children everything necessary for development, but also to literally “sculpt” the child in their own image and likeness, or to make it an even more perfect version of themselves. And for the realization of such desires, parents use any means — if only their, often unhealthy, ambitions were satisfied.
What can be called unhealthy ambitions?
A good example is given by Stephen Covey in his book . The author brilliantly showed how one director of a large company, wanting to stimulate employees to good results, collected them every month and showed a picture with horses running at the hippodrome.
Above the muzzle of the fastest horse, he promised to write the name of the best worker and even pay him a vacation in a five-star hotel.⠀
But no one wanted to become the first employee, moreover, people did not respect the boss. «What is the cause of ingratitude?» — this man who came to Kovi for advice was perplexed …
It’s sad, but many parents treat their children this way. They include in education the rules of conventions:
you can only love a good boy/girl;
at school, only fives are needed, other grades are unacceptable (some even pay children money for this — they give the installation that the child is better and smarter than everyone else, thereby disorienting him in building relationships);
you can give a fashionable gadget, or you can take it back just because the child behaves “wrongly”
In fact, the child feels false, rests and does not want to be the first in the “race”. And so I would like to emphasize the main thing: the relationship between parents and children is not about learning to race at the hippodrome, it is respect and understanding that life sometimes consists of failures and losses.
Any child should be nourished with unconditional love, peace, joy, and letters, diplomas, fives are important and, of course, pleasant, but this is not the main thing.
The main thing is that a child, a person entering life, should gain strength to survive any situation, be able to get along with people in any team, not be envious and not waste time asking questions about the unfair distribution of awards, but write his own story.
Everyone is born to live their own life, and a parent is not a coach, not a coach, but someone who gives unconditional love, without schedules and a success counter.
What should you try to avoid in matters of education?
Decide for the child what is best for him, and never listen to him.
Tell the child that everything is worse than him (this can be paraphrased as “I don’t doubt you”).
Why?
Because in this case, your child will never learn to love and live in joy, and as a result, all the parent’s ambitions will become a boomerang for him.
The child will grow and move away over time, and when the parents wish for communication and care, he will be able to show only the same conventionality that he was taught …