8 Common Parenting Mistakes You Should Avoid!
16-09-2017 | Posted By: Rajni Joshi | 3636 View(s)
Parenting is not easy, and it is more than caring and rearing of the child. Every parent has a different way and style of dealing with the child. Some parents follow the authoritative style whereas others might follow the authoritarian or neglected or maybe the permissive style of parenting. Some parents believe in complete freedom of the child, and others can believe in regulated or controlled freedom of the child. But unfortunately, there are few parenting mistakes that many parents unintentionally make. We do our best for our children but doing more than required can also be bad for your child? Have you ever thought about it? When it comes to parenting, we can not even think of taking any risk! But are you making any parenting mistakes? Keep reading and decide yourself!
Some Common Parenting Mistakes:
1.Comparing your Child with Others:
Do you compare your child with others so that you can instigate that feeling of competition in your child? “You have to score more than 80% because our neighbour’s son got 80%”. Have you ever used this line? Well, Sorry to say, but you are not pushing your child to perform better, but you are directly telling your child that see someone else is much better than you and you have to imitate him/her. Is it okay? No, it isn’t! Every child is unique and different, and obviously, their talents, interests and pace of learning are just different from one another. Why is it so difficult to understand? Do you know what happens when you compare your child with any other child? They start feeling burdened, under-confident and they even start believing that they are less capable than others! Why can’t we just let our kids learn and study according to their pace? Please don’t compare your child with others and start believing in your child’s abilities. Your child can do much better when you are not telling them to be like someone else!
2. Prohibition on Meeting Friends
We understand you want your kids to concentrate on the studies and you want them to spend time with you and many more reasons for which you put those restrictions on them! How often do you meet your friends? Maybe you have a packed schedule, and you can not meet your friends but don’t you feel like meeting them? Of course, we all want to meet our friends, spend time with them but why this restriction on your children then? When you put those restrictions on them, they may start lying to you; they may start hiding things from you. We don’t even realise sometimes how unknowingly we may be making such big mistakes. In a way, you might be teaching your child to hide things from you.
Your child can even become less social when you put such restrictions on them. So please try to understand their feelings too, yes you have got all the rights to see who all are your child’s friends, you can teach them what’s good, what’s bad but do not put restrictions on meeting friends. Doing so can also develop a sense of negativity in them. Also, do not make bad comments on other kids, you are indirectly teaching your child about judging others and talking bad about others.
3. Not Getting Involved in your Child’s Life
Do we understand you should give freedom to the child and giving them their space is necessary but isn’t it also important to know what they do in this space? It is, right? Some parents do not like to interfere in their child’s life, but it is essential to get involved in your child’s life; you should at least ask them how their day was, what did they do in school. Doing so is not only good for getting good marks, but it can also help you to know if the child is having any problem in school or anywhere else. We keep reading about child abuse cases, right? Studies show children who have a good and friendly relationship with parents experience less child abuse cases. Are you getting involved in your child’s life? If not, please start getting involved in your child’s life!
4. Parents are always the right Mindset
Nobody is perfect, and nobody can’t be right all the time! Do you feel you are always right? There are situations when parents do not just agree with what their child says. Your kids become argumentative then, and you are teaching them to argue! We understand some parents might feel it’s about their ego and self-respect and may be a mindset that how can their children teach them anything? Can you be right all the time? Seriously? Please try to change this attitude if you want to have a healthy and friendly relationship with your child and do not commit these kinds of parenting mistakes.
5. Expecting too much from their Child
“My son will become an engineer”, “my daughter will become a Doctor”, have you ever pressurised your kids to become anything that they do not want to be? Why so many expectations? You want your child to score more than your neighbour’s child, you want them to listen to you, you want them to wear what you ask them to wear. Will they be able to take any decision in life then? Think about it!
6.Not involving them in Decision-Making
“Papa, what if we paint our wall blue? Won’t it look beautiful? And you know what, we can even have some pattern drawn on it”. How stupid can you be? Blue? Are you kidding me? You are too small to think about it, just go out and play with your friends. Ever had any such conversation when your child tried giving you some suggestion and you just refused! Will your child be confident enough to share his/her views in future? You tend to break their confidence when you ignore their suggestions or when you avoid involving them in decision-making. Even if you don’t like their idea, can’t you just tell them to do it later, or you can answer them with a positive attitude? Your child can give you any suggestions, it can be bad sometimes but not all the times.
7. Not Giving them Time
Well, this is one of the Biggest Parenting mistakes that most of the parents make. We understand you have a packed schedule, and both of you could be working, but there are many ways to manage your time with your child. Even if both of you are working, you can at least give them your time and attention when you reach home? Never forget to ask your child about his/her day, simple efforts can build that bond between you and your kids. You can plan some picnic or small trip with your child instead of your social gatherings with friends sometimes. Give priority to your kids and make them realise that yes they are loved!
8. Fulfilling all their Demands
We try our best to meet the child’s needs, but when you start fulfilling all their demands, they just can not accept when you don’t! Giving them unnecessary things just because they are demanding it is not a wise thing to do and probably one of the biggest parenting mistakes. Even small children have mobile phones these days, they have become so much dependent on these things that they can not live without these. You should teach them the value of money and hard work. If you are giving them everything, they won’t believe in doing hard work because then they start believing that they can get everything without making much effort. Try to Make them understand why it is not possible all the time to meet their demands.Your child can even argue with you when you don’t say no to anything, but that should be quiet ok. But at the same time Don’t just start ignoring all their demands but see if it is actually required.
So, these are some of the parenting mistakes that many parents make. Try to be more friendly with your children, try to know if everything is okay with them, start getting involved with them, play with them, go out with them but do not completely rule over them too. Involve them in the decisions and build confidence in them.
