As a parent, you have undertaken a project that will last, not just for a few decades but for an entire lifetime. What you do during the time that you are parenting is going to have an effect on your children. That effect is not just limited to the time when they are young, what you do when they are children can have a profound effect on how they live their lives.
Although no parent is going to be perfect, and each individual needs to stand on their own at some point, there are some things parents can do to make a difference. As a matter of fact, Dr. Tim Elmore, a best-selling psychology author and leadership expert, has identified 7 behaviors of parents that should be avoided. These behaviors can reduce a child’s confidence levels, at times, for their entire life.
1. Avoiding All Risk
It doesn’t matter where you look in the world today, there is going to be a warning to some type of danger. Many parents are so concerned over the possibility of losing their children that they have become overly protective. Admittedly, it’s the parents job to protect the children but if we keep them from any type of healthy risk behaving behavior, it can affect them for life. According to studies by psychologists in Europe, if a child doesn’t play outside and is not able to skin a knee here and there, they will likely experience phobias later in life.
2. We Are Too Quick to Rescue
There is a difference in today’s generation of children in comparison with children 30 years ago. Part of this difference is due to parents coming in and taking care of their problems as soon as they occur. When we offer too much “assistance” to our children, we remove them from the ability to navigate those difficulties on their own. Allowing children to troubleshoot difficulties equips them for a lifetime of being able to do so.
3. Too Many Trophies
Since the time that the baby boomers were children, a lot of emphasis has been placed on self-esteem. Today, there is a mentality that everybody who takes part in an activity deserves a trophy. Unfortunately, those days disappear quickly after childhood and as adults, they may have a difficulty adjusting to the ups and downs that life throws their way. When we offer excessive praise we easily disregard the poor behavior of children and it may distort their reality later in life.
4. We Let Our Guilt Affect Us
If there’s one thing that is true of children, they are not going to love their parents 24 hours a day, seven days a week. From time to time, they are going to be disappointed with our efforts, and many parents overcompensate by spoiling their children at all times. Rewarding the children excessively can be a problem and if we have more than one child, we may feel that it is necessary to reward both of them equally at all times. Success in life is dependent upon our actions, and children need to learn this from a young age.
5. We Keep Our Mistakes to Ourselves
When children get older, they will make some big mistakes but more than likely, we made similar mistakes as teenagers. As their parents, there is nothing wrong with talking about the mistakes that we made and perhaps they can learn from some of our bad choices. At the same time, children also need to prepare for the consequences of those decisions. When something bad occurs, talk to them about how you felt when it happened to you.
6. We Mistake Intelligence for Maturity
Many parents will use intelligence as a measurement of the maturity of their child. As a result, it may be that parents are pushing their intelligent child into the world faster than they are ready for it. This is often seen with professional athletes and movie stars, who have an incredible amount of talent but get caught up in scandal because of inexperience.
7. Practice What You Preach
As parents, we are not only responsible for teaching our children, we need to set an example for them as well. Children are able to pick up on any discrepancies in this regard quickly and it could lead to living a double life. When you are a responsible human being as well as a good parent, your children are likely to follow.
Via: Bright Side
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