How to Help Your Children Cope With the Cruellest Childhood Lessons
We adults look at children with some envy: wouldn’t it be nice to be carefree, spend the summer and enjoy youth again? We forget that growing up also means many painful realizations. To refresh our memories, here are some lessons we need to help our children.
You are not that great
Children are naturally self-centered and narcissistic , probably because their brains are still maturing . In addition, parents and other adults tend to praise their children so loudly that children may develop distorted ideas about their talents and skills. Childhood is a time of inflated ego. It is inevitable that even the best soccer players and standouts come to the conclusion that someone else can do it better. Simply moving from elementary school to high school or high school to college should bring about the painful realization that you are not the special snowflake you may have been told about. We all suck ( in some way ), and this lesson is nowhere to go.
How to help your child : The best thing you can do is to consistently praise his or her efforts, not their abilities, from a very young age, so that your child’s self-worth is not inextricably linked to something that he or she may not have. control – controversial metrics of value, such as performing on standard tests or setting a new 100 meter record. Instead of winning or losing, we must emphasize that effort and experience is the reward itself. The best you can say is “I love watching you play” (or learning, or doing something). I know this is easier said than done, because when kids pass exams or do well in some area, our natural instinct is to praise and reward them. By simply praising the effort — not praising the kids if they’re not making the effort — we teach them that hard work is good and will help you become better. It helps them overcome difficulties and develop the courage they need to succeed in life .
When children learn and accept that they are not the center of the universe, they also develop an important virtue: humility. Several ways to raise a humble but confident child: Doing Good Together , generationOn, and Volunteer Match can help you find family-friendly volunteer opportunities, encourage your child to admit mistakes, and show self- empathy .
Life is not fair
“It’s not fair!” What parent has not heard this angry protest from their child? Perhaps this is due to sibling rivalry, or your child is simply not happy with “unfair” family rules. (For example, “my friend Laura doesn’t get to stay until 9. Why do I have to go to be at 8 ?!” Because Mom and Dad actually want to watch this show on Netflix.) To prepare them for in the real world, we have to tell our kids that life is not fair and we all have to deal with it for the rest of our lives. This is a harsh lesson: even if you try very hard and do it right, you don’t necessarily win. ( Game of Thrones , anyone?)
How to help your child: You may not realize this, but chances are that the phrase “this is not fair” sometimes pops out of your mouth. Child development specialist Betsy Brown Brown says we need to eliminate this phrase from everyday use. Also, stop trying to treat all your children the same [emphasis mine]:
Interestingly, it is the parent who sows the seeds of the child’s expectation of justice. In families with more than one child, parents lean back to make sure the children are getting the same . Children begin to understand that just is equal. And this is not true. Dad takes Amanda to buy new shoes and he buys them for little Samantha. Maybe too, he thinks. The mistake is to cultivate the idea that whatever one does, the other will do the same. Dad wants to avoid the inevitable “This isn’t fair!” from the one who misses, so he buys shoes for both in advance.
Fair does not mean equal. Fair means doing what every child needs at the time. (This also means playing by the rules. But that’s another time.) Samantha’s answer should be, “When your feet get too big for your shoes, you will get new shoes.” And then you have to put up with Samantha’s protest.
Of course, there are serious problems of injustice in the world – racism , sexism and other discrimination – and we need to teach children to speak up and fight the injustices they see. As discussed in our post on “ Talking to Kids About Races, ” we can help our children understand, or at least understand, the serious issues of injustice by discussing current events with them, traveling with them to get to know and celebrate other cultures. who worked to make the world a more just world. How you approach these topics depends on your children’s willingness, but even at an early age, children should be able to understand Louis C.K.’s lesson. in the video above: “The only time you have to look into your neighbor’s bowl is to make sure they have enough. You don’t look into your neighbor’s bowl to see if you have … as much as they have. “
When it comes to things like having less ice cream than another child, kids need to learn to tolerate their frustration and appreciate what they have. It’s never too early to learn gratitude . So don’t worry about adjusting to the ideals of justice when these are secondary issues, and let the children experience the reality from the start that, yes, life is not fair.
Your parents are ordinary people with disabilities
I confess I will be sad when my daughter stops calling me the best person in the world. She knows that I make mistakes, but she does not yet realize how ordinary, fragile and prone to mistakes I really am – like everyone else. Finding out that your parent is a human is like knowing that there is no Santa Claus or the Tooth Fairy, but it’s even more shocking, as if you have been tricked by the person you trust the most for over a decade. In this sense, every parent is a fraud.
However, it is an important and inevitable milestone. Children need to challenge the assumption that mom and dad know everything so that they can become independent people and make their own choices. Perhaps the realization that parents are just people convinces children that the world will not fall apart if mom or dad is not around. Either way, this is a bittersweet turning point.
How to help your child: This can be more challenging for you than it is for your child. The advice for both parenting teenagers and empty nesting is the same: Give your kids more independence and start treating them as equals, but try to teach them the life skills they need long before they stop looking at you. as an authority figure. The dynamics of the parent-child relationship will definitely change, but if the child learns that you are a real person, it can really deepen your relationship with the young adult. Don’t worry about pretending that you can fix or do everything, but keep arguing that no matter how your relationship may change, your job will always be the same – being close to your child. (The cat will crawl out of the bag soon enough that you still won’t know what you are doing.)
Friendship (and everything else) won’t last forever
For all of us, friendships are fading, and relationships end outside of our control. Each of them is a wound. In childhood, these breakups hurt us more when we were just learning about how friendship works, and about those few people who are close to us, who mean everything to us. Even kids in preschool are quick to recruit their best friends, friends forever . And dating in our younger years is a serious thing that affects the way we see ourselves. But, as you know, people move on, and life goes on, and each child experiences pain from the extinction or sudden breakdown of a friendship or relationship.
How to help your child: Often times, children are confronted with the harsh reality that nothing lasts forever due to the death of a family or possibly the death of a pet. In this case, how you talk to your children about death will depend on their level of development, allowing the child to lead. In the event of a breakup – be it friendship or romance – child and adolescent therapist Signe Whitson advises helping children understand that breaking up is not a failure, but a predictable (but painful) part of growing up. Nevertheless, let them mourn. Our usual instinct is to protect our children and save them from pain or sadness, but as Pixar’s Inside Out so well emphasized, sadness is also necessary. These are also instructive moments when we can discuss with our children what true friendship and love are.
And, of course, listen . For all of the above and many more, true listening remains our best parenting strategy. This can all be simple advice, but it is not always easy to follow through when we go through these cruel childhood lessons with our children again.