How not to spoil your child

2024 Author: Seth Attwood | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 15:55

Child psychologists, psychiatrists and educators share many things that parents should avoid in order to help their child develop a confident, harmonious and happy personality.

The main thing is to understand that you can easily make mistakes and spoil the child yourself, make him capricious, disobedient and with a distorted worldview.

Raising children is a rather laborious task. That is why many parents study a lot of material even before the baby is born. The last few decades have brought many new discoveries in the field of child development, some of which are extremely important. However, the sheer volume of information can seem daunting. And in order not to spoil the child yourself, it is easier to focus your attention on how you should not raise children.

Spoil a child or how you can not bring up children

Experts in the field of child development and parenting admit the possibility that some parents can spoil the child. Child psychologists and child psychiatrists shared the main findings according to which parents can spoil the child and give recommendations on how to properly raise children in order to avoid this. Eliminate these things from the parenting process, and you can certainly help your child develop a happy personality.

1. Threats to leave your child

All parents are familiar with the situation: the time has come to leave the park and the child refuses to go with you, he runs away, hides, cries, etc. It upsets you and you get angry. We usually watch my mother heading for the exit and declaring that she will go home without him. This is a last resort and usually works. However, such a threat of abandoning a child affects his psyche in an extremely destructive way.

A child's feeling of affection for their parents is one of the most important things in the development of children, especially in the early years. Dr. L. Alan Sruf, professor of psychology at the Minnesota Institute of Child Development, says the threat of abandoning a child, even in harmless ways, can shake the fund for the safety and well-being that you, as a parent, present to them. According to Sruf, when you say things like, “I'll just leave you here,” it means to the child that you don't want to protect and care for him. For a child, the idea that you can leave him alone in a strange place is terribly frightening and this can lead to the destruction of the feeling of attachment to you as a safe basis, which is extremely necessary for children when faced with the outside world.

Such simple things can ruin the child and his attitude towards you. Therefore, the next time you feel the urge to respond to resistance or tantrums with the phrase "I'm leaving," try to calm your child down and explain the situation in simple words, switch his attention. Better yet, prepare your child to leave the park in advance by repeating how much time they have left to start packing. Young children may not yet feel the gaps in time, but your warning can be a countdown for the child that it's time, but you can still run a little with friends.

2. Lie to your child

A simple but extremely important rule of thumb in parenting: Don't lie to your child! For example, you cannot tell a child that his pet ran away for a walk when the animal died. This is a good example of a common and common parenting mistake. When you distort the truth in this way, of course not maliciously, you are trying to save the feelings of your children. You may be unsure of how to handle difficult situations, or you may just hope to avoid a problem. These little lies protect your child from pain, but in fact they backfire - distorting reality, which is unnecessary and potentially damaging. By using lies, you get in the way of spoiling the child and his relationship with the outside world.

It is important, however, to be sure that your explanation is appropriate for the child's age. A very young child does not need long explanations about death. Telling him or her that a person (or an animal) was very old or seriously ill, and therefore died, will be enough.

According to Sruf, this parenting error also includes "feelings of distortion." When you tell children that they are feeling something that they do not actually feel, or vice versa, tell them what they do not feel themselves. In other words, creating a discrepancy between what your child experiences and what you tell him, the naturalness of the child's feelings is distorted and the ability to adequately assess a particular situation is lost.

For example, if a child says he is afraid to go to school for the first time, instead of explaining that he is not afraid or is stupid and makes up, acknowledge your child's feelings and then proceed from that. Say something like, “I know you're scared, but I'll come with you. We will meet your new teachers and classmates together, and I will stay with you until you get comfortable and stop being afraid. Sometimes excessive excitement causes a feeling of fear, this is normal. Next time, if you want to tell a little untruth or distort the truth, think about how you would not spoil the child and look at it from the other side: this is his opportunity to grow up.

3. Ignore your own bad behavior

Often times, parents act by the rule: “Do as I say, not as I do,” but there is a lot of good research proving why this does not work for a variety of reasons. Children absorb everything around them like a sponge in their ability to learn and are a mirror of both good and bad behavior. For this reason, child development expert Dr. David Elkind, a professor at Tufts University, argues that modeling a child's behavior the way we want it to be is one of the best things parents can do. What you do is a much bigger example than what you tell your child.

For example, children of parents who smoke are more likely to smoke than children of non-smoking parents; children of overweight parents are significantly more likely to be overweight than children of normal weight parents; even parents with slightly cryptic behavior pass it on to their children. Probably, it is from here that the saying originated: "An apple does not fall far from an apple tree." The best way to teach your child to eat broccoli is to start eating it yourself and do it with enthusiasm. Children are capable of smelling falsehood from a mile away, so believing in what you yourself are doing is an integral part of personal example. It is the parents themselves who can spoil the child, so the parent's role is to be a good model of behavior for the child. "Showing" instead of "telling" how to behave is the most effective method of raising children.

4. What suits one person does not suit others at all

Another of the biggest problems of parenting is that you cannot raise children by one yardstick, especially if there are several children in the family. As Elkind points out: “In the same boiling water the egg hardens and the carrots soften. The same parenting behavior can have different consequences depending on the child's personality type. By using the same parenting method, you can raise the child or spoil the child if they are different children.

In a family with two children, you may notice that not only are their personalities very different, but other variables, such as sleep, attention, learning style, and behavior, are also different. For example, your first child may be completely comfortable for you, while your second child may constantly strive to move somewhere, jerking and dragging you along. Some children respond better to hard boundaries, while others need a softer attitude. Thus, it is important to remember that what works for one person may not necessarily work for another.

The same rule applies when it comes to comparing you as a child with your child. Perhaps you were an active child who was constantly on the move, required a lot of active games, and your child prefers to play quiet, quiet games. Recognizing and maintaining such differences can be challenging and will require reevaluation and training to avoid relying on your own experiences and memories. But raising children taking into account the needs of each child will, of paramount importance, have a long-term perspective for the harmonious development of your children.

5. Scold or punish a child when he screams, gets annoyed and throws things around

A child's expression of anger: Leaving, throwing things and yelling is completely natural behavior for a child. It is the way children, with their limited language and immature cognitive (mental) abilities, express emotion. Punishing a child with such behavior, no matter how tempting it may seem, is not a way out of the situation. The punishment gives the child the impression that having emotions is bad behavior in the first place. Consequently, you can spoil the child by blocking his expression of emotions.

Dr. Tova Klein, director of the Columbia University Barnard Toddler Center, suggests that instead of scolding a child for such behavior, “Help your child to understand his negative emotion (anger, sadness), so that you can learn in time to understand why he feels it and how expresses. This will help the child develop emotionally and socially competence. So, empathizing with the child, instead of punishing the child, you set a limit (ie, "I understand you, you are angry, let's solve this problem together"). It will have better results than reprimanding and punishing a small child.”

Instead of “blocking and covering” your child's emotions, help your child see that you understand their upset and that it is normal to feel angry or irritated.

6. Be a friend to your child rather than a parent

This is the most common parenting mistake, especially as children get older. All parents want to have warm friendships with their children. But, in this way, it is very easy to spoil the child by offering him the role of a friend rather than a parental role.

Dr. Sue Hubbard, pediatrician and host of the radio show The Kid's Doctor, says it's important to always be a parent, especially when it comes to setting boundaries in substance experiments. The rise in alcohol and drug use during adolescence is increasing, and Hubbard suggests this is due to the fact that parents want to be their child's friend rather than a parent in the first place. Often, in a family circle, children are even allowed to consume a small amount of alcohol, thinking that it is harmless. But alcohol is the main cause of death. Even a tiny amount of alcohol can spoil the child, because you yourself form his attitude towards this.

“You must set an example for responsible drinking,” says Hubbard. Overly permissive parenting extends to other areas as well. It is important to remain an authority for your child using your age and experience, but not to be an authoritarian parent in order not to lose the child's trust.

7. Think that you are solely responsible for your child's development

We are all aware of the impact our parenting has on them. But sometimes it’s easy to take an idea to the extreme and feel that whatever you do will have a life-changing effect on your child’s success.

Frequent concerns of parents:

• If you can't provide him with a better elementary school, what will happen to his academic pursuits?
• If you don't find the perfect balance between discipline and good nature, how will this affect his development?
• Has your child pushed another toddler in the playground because you let him watch aggressive cartoons?

Becoming a guilty and overprotective parent is one surefire way to spoil a child. Dr. Hans Steiner, professor emeritus of child psychiatry at Stanford University, warns parents not to take exclusive responsibility for their child's problems. There are many other factors in a child's life besides you that will affect their personality and development: genes, other family members, school, friends, and so on. Thus, when something goes wrong, do not blame yourself for it, as you are unlikely to be the only one who led to this problem.

Conversely, Steiner believes, don't assume that you have no role in your child's development. Some people may act on the assumption that a child's success and problems are due primarily to genes or teachers in school, not you. Both extremes are just extremes. Balance is important among all aspects of parenting. You are important in your child's life, but you are not the only influencing factor.

8. Assuming there is only one way to be a good parent

You may be reading a lot to explore some of the issues of parenting and get important advice. But you must consider the personality of the relationship between parents and their children. Psychologists have outlined nine different personality traits (some of which include attention span, attention span, mood and activity level) that are grouped into three basic personality types: light / flexible, difficult / assertive, and cautious / slow warming up.

It goes without saying that your child's character interacts with your character. Some parents work well with their children's characters, while others require more attention. Your childish character could be very different from your current character. Just imagine that there are scrupulous mothers with sloppy children or tough dads with easy children. It is up to you to take these differences into account and make an effort or not.

Once you become aware of a phenomenon, you can figure out new ways to interact with your child to minimize friction. One recent study by the University of Washington found that when parenting styles were tailored closer to children's needs, children were significantly less prone to depression and anxiety than children whose parents were less attuned to their children's personalities.

Knowing your child's character and needs is part of being a good parent.