The 4 Most Damaging Mistakes Parents Make With Their Children

In this week’s Success Newsletter, I would like to like to reveal the first 2 of the 4 most damaging mistakes parents make.

First a quick update: 

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Damaging Mistakes Parents Make – It All Begins With You

What do parents primarily want from their children?

Obedience.

What do children primarily want?

Freedom.

Obedient children seemingly make life easier for parents but many parents who push for obedience, often seek more than to make their life easier; they believe that they are always right, and that the child should be raised and develop in a very specific way, with a specific outcome.

But is the parent’s desired outcome focused on helping the child to realize his or her full potential?

No.

First Damaging Mistakes Parents Make – Trying To Change Your Children – Trying To Make Your Child Someone Or Something They Are Not

Most parents want their child to fit a preconceived mold and to be a certain way. “Why don’t you want to become a …? Why aren’t you like your sister/brother? Why don’t you do …? I never had those opportunities when I was a child.”

Or perhaps, the parent simply communicates, ‘Why aren’t you the child I fantasized, the child I want you to be? Why can’t you compensate for what I didn’t get as a child?’

Thus, the parent fails to see the child as a real person and fails to recognize and accept that the child will also trigger the parent’s old wounds which I will discuss later on.

Second Damaging Mistakes Parents Make – Not Seeing and Validating Your Child As He/She Really Is

Many of my clients suffered as children because their parents never actually ‘saw’ them; their parents didn’t listen; they didn’t try to understand their child and they failed to validate or celebrate their child.

They didn’t identify, appreciate, acknowledge, nurture, encourage or celebrate the uniqueness and individuality of each child. In some cases, they compared the child to their siblings or simply demanded that the child be a certain way, holding and promoting beliefs, values, assumptions, and expectations over the truth of who the child is.

Can you see your child as a real person VS a ‘mini-me’ or your fantasy?

Can you see your child as someone who has their own feelings, own personality, own temperament, own likes and dislikes, and their own imagination, dreams, and desires?

Practice accepting the way your child is not the way you think they should be.

Your children need your security and guidance, but they don’t need or benefit from harsh expectations, dominance, or control.

They need you to tune into and engage with them – to truly see, hear, listen, understand, and validate them based on who they are, without trying to make them what you expect them to be.

I am not promoting here a disengaged parent who robs their child of critical guidance, teachings, boundaries, and discipline. Nor am I promoting the parent who refuses to challenge the child to discover their own potential, passion, and competency.

Rather, I am suggesting that you connect with your child as a unique being while you also become aware of who you are, your beliefs, your programming, your unresolved issues (usually from childhood), and allow your child to reflect to you who you are, as you, too, develop and evolve.

Counter the first 2 most damaging mistakes parents make by practicing accepting the way your child is not the way you think they should be.

Unconditional love is a term that is constantly bandied around. But how can a parent claim to love their child unconditionally when they are punishing their child for failing to live up to their expectations or fantasies.

Ironically, adults often complain that they cannot find a partner who accepts them as they are; someone who validates and celebrates them rather than constantly nitpicking or trying to change or mold them! And yet, how many parents give to their children the same thing they want – significance, validation, love and a consistent celebration of who they are?

Click here to discover the third and fourth Most Damaging Mistakes Parents Make

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to us of Children.

And he [the prophet] said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow,

which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them,

but seek not to make them like you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday. 
  

You are the bows from which your children

as living arrows are sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite,

and He bends you with His might

that His arrows may go swift and far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies,

so He loves also the bow that is stable.

From The Prophet (Knopf, 1923) by Kahlil Gibran

Discover the 60 things every child needs.

If you would like to resolve the pain and experiences of your childhood, or release trauma or some other painful event, do it now gently, easily, and quickly with my SRTT process. Book a one-on-one session with me.

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I wish you the best and remind you “Believe in yourself -You deserve the best!”

Patrick Wanis Ph.D. Celebrity Life Coach, Human Behavior & Relationship Expert & SRTT Therapist