COMMON PARENTING MISTAKES.
What are the common parenting mistakes parents make with no idea at all?
Being a parent has never been a day’s job. It’s every parent’s dream to instil in their children the best habits, behaviors, and morals that would see them become better persons in their lifetime, but is it always without consequence? As parents, are we getting it right?
Every parent out there wants the best for their children, intentions, however, may be all good and innocent, but what can we say about the methods employed? How can we avoid making such grievous parenting mistakes that could be detrimental to the welfare of our children?
Do you want to know the different parenting mistakes you’re making as a parent? Keep reading, and you’d find out.
Here are some of the most common parenting mistakes made by parents, although, this is done with good intentions, they come off rather adversely. So, let’s begin.
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Giving Lectures Rather Than Discussing
It’s not surprising that most kids want to be treated as adults and wouldn’t want to be told what to do anymore. Funny right?
This is one of the major reasons why they tend to oblige your requests when you take time out and discuss with them. They want to know that you care about them and that you still give them your time.
Rather than giving them lectures, kids appreciate when you can connect with them and ask them questions, giving them room to also share their thoughts. This is one parenting mistake every parent can obviously relate with.
If you spend hours on end, lecturing your children and they don’t seem to be changing anytime soon, it’s time to switch your method of relating with them.
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Under-reacting and Issuing Idle Threats
Your kids shouldn’t do something wrong, and then you turn a blind eye; you refuse to scold them even a bit. This is wrong and could give your kid the notion that they could try it again and they would go scot-free.
When you consistently issue idle threats to your kids, it would take no time at all for them to catch on that you don’t mean a word of what you say. You tell them things like “If you don’t stop doing that, they’ll be no Television for a week”, and then, you don’t follow through.
Very soon, your kids would learn not to take you seriously because if your threats don’t mean anything, then there’s no need to follow your instructions.
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Setting Unreasonable goals and Comparisons.
No one likes to be compared with another person except if it’s healthy competition.
This is another parenting mistake that I believe every parent can relate with. We set unattainable expectations and goals for our kids just because someone of the same age is doing better at it. We’ve got to realize that no one was born the same way as another and that no two persons are alike.
Our kids are individually brilliant and should never be compared with anyone for whatever reason.
Identifying your child’s potentials and feats not only motivates them to be better, but also increases their self-confidence.
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Criticizing Them Rather Than Encouraging
You’d agree with me when I say, at that tender age; your child isn’t quite able to know the difference between constructive criticism and utter demoralizing criticism.
Most parents make the mistake of believing that criticizing their children would spur them to greater achievement, but that’s a parenting mistake right there because, in reality, it does not.
Children respond to encouragement far better than criticism. If you wish well for your child, you’d start encouraging them from now on rather than yelling and making them feel bad about themselves.
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Taking Charge Of Your Children’s Problems
This particular parenting mistake is quite a norm amongst parents.
As parents, we’ve all gone through a rough patch where we feel alone, and it looked like it was almost impossible to come out of it, but then, we come out, and we’re even better than our old self.
Why do we come out of these challenges and feel victorious and self-acknowledged even when no one helped us or came to our rescue? That’s simply because there comes the point in our lives when we don’t need anybody’s help to surmount a problem.
You need to step back for a moment and let your kids handle things for themselves. Let them feel the heat and experience what it takes to go face to face with a challenge and overcome it.
This is because you won’t always be there for them and they need to learn what it takes to be independent.
In a nutshell, parents should do well to work on themselves and see where they’re getting it wrong.
All of these parenting mistakes have been highlighted because the actions taken by parents are done with good and pure intent and no ulterior motives.
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