Don't Compare Your Kids

2024 Author: Harry Day | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 15:43

We are all geniuses. But if you judge the fish by

her ability to climb a tree, she will live her whole life, considering herself a fool.

Albert Einstein

"Our neighbor Dasha has time to do everything and study well and goes to a music school, not like you …"

“At one time I also helped my mother with the housework, and had time to study, but you can't even do the homework yourself..”

"Your older sister was not like that, she was well-mannered and obedient …"

"Everybody has children like children, only God punished me …"

Very often we have to hear this in the dialogues of adults and children. It seems to parents that by comparing their child with others who are in some ways more successful, they motivate them to achieve the same result, but it turns out exactly the opposite. The result is so unattainable that an “ugly duckling complex” is formed, disbelief in one's own strengths. Often, such children are dominated by negative emotions (resentment, disappointment, guilt, anger at the one with whom they are compared), bad mood and unpleasant experiences dominate. The child, noticing the unattainability of ideals, lives powerlessness, guilt and shame for his insignificance.

If you do not want to raise a squeezed and insecure person, angry with the whole "perfect" world, stop comparing your child to others.

We adults live in a world of tough competition, we compare our successes, apartments, cars, our children, ourselves with others. For a child's still not strong psyche, this is a huge load and the child cannot cope with it without harming himself.

Here are a few rules, following which, you can accept and support your child and form your stable position in parenting:

1. Compare the child only with himself, while focusing on new successes (Today you wrote a letter much faster and better than yesterday) praise him for his initiative, pay attention to small achievements.
2. Don't look back at other people's opinions. “What will people think”, what difference does it make to you, the main thing is what you think about your child.

3. Do not pay attention to the assessment and statements about the child of your relatives and acquaintances, if you listen to them, you might think that at six months their children had all their teeth, ate everything and spoke in sentences, and at the age of three they fluently read quantum physics. I am exaggerating, of course, but in fact only you know what your baby is capable of and not capable of, you know his strengths and weaknesses.
4. Listen to the opinion of experts, psychologists who can help in the development and upbringing of a child, taking into account the age characteristics of the body and psyche.
5. Never compare to brothers and sisters, this creates conflict and rivalry. I am sure that you do not want such a relationship between children in a family.
6. Don't compare with yourself. You lived at a different time and with different parents. Your child is not you, he has other talents, tastes, character.
7. Take into account the characteristics of your baby, his reaction speed, perseverance, concentration of attention, interests. Look for an approach to it.
8. Teach the child to self-analysis, let him learn to draw conclusions himself, what is good for him, and what else needs to be worked out.

There are no ideal parents, like ideal children, and that's good! Everyone is different and your task is to be your child's support and support in any situations, to treat shortcomings with acceptance and develop what comes out well. You have the best baby in the world because he is yours!