Mom I got star in the school !

The children comes running to parents , home eager to tell about their achievements. They share everything , good or bad , with them or around them with parents. We are very happy and feel proud when they bring trophy or a prize. We smile and encourage them. They grow little , they come home , as usual share the news that we all bunked the class and went for a movie or worse some bad habit thing they tried, kabhoom #*#<#> We expload oh my god ...how can you being my son / daughter Worse the mistake ,worse the reaction....so what message we convey the message that they have done some heineous crime.

Are we wrong?

No and Yes , yes and no. Of course no parents will or should encourage wrong thoughts or behaviour. The parents choice of words, manner and way of handling such situation makes a lot of difference. In actual sense the parents want to say that so and so action was bad but the way. The manner in which they scold makes the child feel that he or she is bad.

What’s up

What’s happening and the results to it are opposite, now the parents run behind children, go around them to ask what is happening, hardly getting any answers or details. What, where, why and how The child who was sharing everything in detail has suddenly closed the doors to parents. Same child, same parents, then what has changed? First when they got some good news about some achievements we smiled, appreciated. Every soul craves for approval, acceptance and understanding. As soon as they do something which is bad in their eyes and truly not good. What do we do is instead of listening we became judgemental. We attack the child and not their actions. This results in the child not sharing and they take their rejection personally and shut themselves from parents. When other children come to us with same mistakes committed, what do we say? Yeah, it happens in this age and time, it happens, no worries, take care, etc. We do not react dramatically.

How could you?

This difference in reaction makes friends parents look “cool parents” in the eyes of children. Counsellors vs Parents People open up more, share more about their feelings or thought to counsellors or friends and more then family because they are afraid to share or to even strangers to get rejection, ridicule and shame from family. When somebody comes to us with sin what do we do? We try to show them that they are not but the action they did is bad, we try to help them to be emotionally strong and give them a helping hand to come out from their place. This is exactly what we as parents should have in the first place when our child was growing and told us honestly about the mistakes. So lets give them a helping hand by not becoming so judgemental, critics or aggressive. Instead let us show love, support, and guidance. To be continued...