Most parents love their children and want the best for them. Sometimes, however, due to the parent\u2019s own history of difficulties and trauma, they are unable to be the kind of parent that the child needs. There may be emotional neglect or psychological, physical or sexual abuse and most of us are aware of the lifelong negative consequences that can have for a person.<\/p>\n
What many of you may not be aware of, however, is the impact of parental attitudes that on the surface look supportive but in reality gives the child unrealistic expectations about life. Life isn\u2019t always easy and to pretend that it is, I believe, is doing our children a disfavour. It is done out of love but often end up having a detrimental effect on the child\u2019s (and later adult\u2019s) ability to negotiate life effectively.<\/p>\n
Let me give you a couple of examples: a parent tells (or shows) a child over and over that: \u201cI just want you to be happy so you don\u2019t have to do anything you don\u2019t want to\u201d <\/em>or \u201cYou can have anything you want in life\u201d.<\/em><\/p>\n The consequences of the first parental signal is an entitled sense of not having to do anything that he or she does not want to but how does that help us in life? Isn\u2019t there days when we don\u2019t want to go to work, compromise with our partner or exercise at the gym but we do it anyway because we realise that in the big scheme of things it would be better?<\/p>\n The consequences of the attitude that \u201cyou can have whatever you want\u201d <\/em>is a relentless striving towards more and better things\/people\/experiences. Nothing is ever good enough and there\u2019s an agitated sense of being cheated when things are less than perfect or if they don\u2019t get exactly what they want.<\/p>\n That seems like a perfect recipe for lifelong dissatisfaction to me.<\/p>\n The fact is that life is complicated and sometimes things work out and sometimes they don\u2019t. Each of us have to make a choice about whether we want to focus on the good things and accept (with as much grace as we can) the things that aren\u2019t.<\/p>\n The most valuable thing we can give our children is resilience, which is the capacity to bounce back after adversity, because adversity will find our children whether we want it or not (we know that even if it pains us to admit it) and to sell them a fairy tale of life is preparing them poorly for the reality of life.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Most parents love their children and want the best for them. Sometimes, however, due to the parent\u2019s own history of difficulties and trauma, they are unable to be the kind of parent that the child needs. There may be emotional … Continue reading