If you consider that the family is the smallest unit of any society and that by and large, how well (or not) a child turns out is largely dependent on their experiences growing up, then it is easy to see how crucial parenting is for the well being of the society. Ever heard the saying, “it takes a village to raise a child“? That’s because while parents have the primary responsibility of bringing up their child, that child cannot live in isolation of the society in which it lives. This society has its sets rule and expectations and families, in turn, have their own expectations of the society. Think safe neighbourhood for instance. To be sure, each individual’s expectations might clash with what is generally demanded of them from the society.
Returning to our discussion of parenting, it’s natural for parents to be protective of their children and to have vested interest in what they believe will contribute to the welfare of their wards irrespective of what the society might say or think. No one should begrudge that without good reason; to some extent such behaviours are commendable. It’s important for children to know that their parents have got their back – pillars of support and encouragement. But supporting a child and blindly giving in to their every whim is not the same thing. Don’t forget that one day, they will fly the nest and will have to face the reality that not everyone is ‘mummy’ who they had at their beck and call. Moreover, there is no free thing as free lunch, meaning that it’s important that parents teach their children that success is not handed on a plate; if it were, then everyone will be successful seeing that no one was carved from a tree. Success is something that is attained by those who worked to achieve it. Sure, of course, they may fail the first, second time or even the umpteenth time, but that shouldn’t define them. It’s not how many times they fail that matter but their ability to rise from failure and plod on.
It is also the present writer’s opinion that every parent wants to raise a child who will grow into a well-rounded adult. An adult who has a purpose in life, who is successful in their own right and who is not only useful to themselves but also to the society as well. How parents might go about achieving that might differ from one set of parents to another. However, no knows it all and it is not unusual to seek the opinion of other people as to what constitutes good parenting or what mistakes a good parent might be making without realising it.
So it was that a Quora user who the present user assume want to improve their parenting skills asked the online community: “what are common mistakes that parents with good intentions make because of ignorance?”
Sure enough, the question elicited over a hundred answers, an indication of the interest people have on the subject of parenting. Opinions were shared by experts that included educators, experienced parents and therapists who chimed in with a list of serious mistakes even the best-intentioned parents often make. Some of the answers are quite eye-opening and included many things parents do that seem benign but when seen from the perspective of the answerers appear to be damaging. There are answers bothering on health, social media, punishment, child’s education and in fact to virtually every aspect of parenting.
Below are just three of the many answers that contributors provided:
1. Allowing your child to give up too easily
Learning is pretty much always hard, insists Ryan Chew, an entrepreneur who runs a private school, in his answer. Mastering something new starts out fun, then tends to get miserable as concepts get harder until, if you manage to push through the pain, you achieve enough skill that whatever you’re studying becomes fun again.
The mistake many well-intentioned parents make, he claims, is letting their kids give up when the going gets tough. This “trough” in the learning process, he says, “is a natural and inescapable part of human learning… Our job as parents is to guide and shape our children’s development, boost them up during the high points, and support them as they work through the low points.”
2. Praising talent rather than effort
A number of Quora commentators and a whole lot of science agree: telling your kids they’re smart might seem like a good idea but it can backfire badly. Why? Because if kids think their achievements are all about innate talent, they see the inevitable stumbles and struggles of learning as counter-evidence of their own abilities. Failure becomes something to avoid in order to protect their reputation for smarts. And that’s no way to learn anything.
Or, as Quora respondent Brent C.J. Britton puts in, labeling kids smart, athletic, or artistic creates “a dynamic where the child is afraid to fail for fear of losing the label. They learn, ‘if I do not get an A, I am not smart. If I don’t hit a home run, I am not athletic. If my drawing is not pretty, I am not artistic.'”
It’s far better to praise your kids for working hard and persevering in the face of obstacles. Then challenges are transformed from threats to their identity into an expected part of the growth process, one they take pride in overcoming.
That can make all the difference when it comes to succeeding in life, claims educator Matthew Alexander. “Although ‘smart’ kids cruise early on, eventually everyone hits a wall where only perseverance enables continued success. If smart kids don’t learn to work through problems early on, they’ll be more apt to give up when it gets tough because in their minds easy = smart, hard = dumb,” he cautions. “Hard work always trumps innate smarts.”
3. Removing the struggle from your child’s life
It’s in a parent’s nature to want to protect your children from the slings and arrows of life, but take this too far and you’ll do your precious offspring a huge disservice, warns mother of three Jen Brown. Without facing (reasonable, age-appropriate) hardship and want, your kids will never learn to weather storms and solve problems independently. Brown offers a simple but powerful story to illustrate this principle.
“When my oldest was about nine months old he still wasn’t crawling. He was still technically my foster child at that point and we had a home nurse that came monthly to check on us. I asked her about the crawling and she pointed out how I had him sitting in a circle of toys that were all within his reach. He was happy and had no need to learn to crawl because life was being handed to him. She went over and pulled the toys away from his little circle of blanket. He of course cried and then I cried and she just kept me from giving the toys back,” she relates. “Well he didn’t just magically start crawling but he did stop crying and start exploring.”.
“I adore my kids so I don’t solve all of their problems,” she concludes. Neither should you.
The three points summary first appeared on Inc website
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