Caring parents try the best they can, with what they know in order to provide love, nourishment, and protection for the positive development of their children.

 

Parents with all good intentions to “get-it-right,” often overlook a critical aspect of parenting that requires parents to step back and let their children learn through their own efforts to “get-it-right.”

Getting it right means children need to make mistakes and reap the consequences. Is there any better teachers than experiences and consequences? Children also need to learn to deal with peer pressure, acceptance and rejection, and the day-to-day situations. They need to understand the value of learning effective coping and communication skills.

 

Parents mean no intentional harm, they simply are afraid, mostly due to their own childhood histories, to let their child experience what they need to experience. Instead they want to save them from any type of emotional pain.

 

Remember raising a self-sufficient confident and mostly happy kid takes a parent or significant adult that can quietly wait in the wings, watch the child experience whatever it is, listen to them and only rush in to save if the child is in real danger.

 

Being an overprotective, helicopter or lawn-mower parent robs children of experiencing life and that can lead to a child feeling ill-equipped or inadequate to handle normal emotions. In fact emotions such as anger, fear, sadness, self-doubt, confusion and frustration are often perceived by children as overwhelming rather than perceiving them as something to handle and having the confidence to look for positive solutions.

 

Parents, the behavior and attitude you or significant adults demonstrate plays a significant role in how children begin to perceive themselves and others.

 

 

 

Here is a list of a few skills your child may not be developing: 

  

1. Feelings of achievement when they accomplish something on their own  

2. An opportunity to begin trusting their own judgement, decisions and choices  

3. Learning that a mistake made, is a lesson learned  

4. Acknowledging that others are just as important as themselves  

5. Recognizing that although some of their peers can be hurtful, their own positive sense of worth allows them to ignore what’s negative   

6. Most children thrive on knowing that their parents believe in them and trust them.  Not only do they thrive on that feeling but it sends a positive message to them as to how valuable they are and how respected they are.  

 

The list could go on and on, but you need only to look at these six self-development characteristics to be on the right track of “getting-it-right”.