Giving Your Child a Better Life than Yours?
By Dina Halaseh, Brain Trainer & Educational Psychologist
Many parents, including me, vow to give their children better lives than theirs. But is there a downside to that?
It took a considerable deal of awareness to pause and think about which parts of my life I want to pass on and continue with my child and which I need to stop. This moment in life where a person pauses and reflects on what life is and what it should be like doesn’t happen to everyone.
That’s why we see people reliving their parents’ lives or parenting styles. For instance, childhood emotional neglect involves ignoring or not meeting a child’s emotional needs. Often neglectful parents were neglected children.
It is a blessing to understand how life knocked us down, what went wrong and what went right and how to improve on it for our kids. But when can a seemingly good thing become potentially detrimental to our child?
Resilience over comfort
It’s not possible to protect our children from the ups and downs of life. However, raising resilient children is possible and can provide them with the tools they need to respond to life’s challenges. That’s not possible, however, if children are constantly handed everything so easily without putting in any effort. They tend to forget to appreciate the value of many things.
When children don’t put effort into their own skills, they tend to fall back in achievement. Being scared of failing will only hinder their growth in life. Sometimes shielding them from all the consequences of their own actions will result in them thinking they can get away with everything.
We might think we are protecting our kids from feeling negative feelings, getting a bad grade or going through a challenging situation but in reality, we are setting them up for failure. Thinking that there will always be someone to pull them out of the mess they’re in or the consequences of their bad choices will stop our children from learning their lesson.
You can start today in helping to raise a healthy balanced child who knows the value of things, can learn from big and small mistakes as well as willing to put effort into succeeding.
You can contact Dina Halaseh at [email protected]
