Viewing entries tagged
teach children
From screen doors to tinted windows, filters are plenty helpful. On the other hand, conscious or unconscious mental filters might need replacing. Mental filters that only recognize information or experiences that are familiar or convenient and which disregard the unknown are problematic, limiting our personal growth.
Although rules are necessary, they need to be adaptive to our changing situations. Children eventually learn that rules are often modified or ignored. However, for young children rules keep them safe. Don’t touch the stove, don’t talk to strangers, always look twice before crossing the street. Having rules that provide the less experienced a chance to gain experience without dying first, is not a bad thing. So why are rules destined to be broken? Rules are generally simple, like an on - off switch. Yet, most of life’s choices exist somewhere between completely on and completely off.
Rules, guidelines, loving discipline, and role modelling of exemplary behaviour, is crucial to children’s development. Parents can easily sabotage this process by having double standards. This double standard is achieved by having a narrow set of expectations for our children, and an emotionally justified and much widder set of rules for ourselves.
Most children, adults too, will test boundaries set by parents, or other authorities. We defy rules for many reasons. Establishing independence by resisting outside influences, conforming to peer pressure for social gains, and the all-powerful desire to learn through our own personal experiences. For some of us, assenting to untested rules imposed by others, simply goes against our grain. Children stray beyond their parent’s rules to test if the previous generations restrictions truly apply to them.
Today’s parents have new challenges. Previous generations were kept busy feeding, clothing, and educating their kids, while even earlier generations of parents were preoccupied with just keeping their children alive. Parenting challenges that exist today, like learning disabilities, gender identity, ADHD, autism spectrum, along with heightened anxiety and depression, either didn’t exist in the past, or we were unaware of them.
Children do not want to be obsessed with needing peer approval, but most are. If they understand that rejection is a reality of life, then the illusion of needing the approval of others is easier to debunk. Children certainly cannot make their friends happy or win their admiration and respect all the time. Children navigate socially with greater confidence when they accept this reality.
