Ways Parents Offend their Children - Three Ways
62Making promise only to break them
I once met a kid who had quite an expensive phone. This child asked me, “why are fathers such liars?” This question didn’t surprise me much (how many people have never had lied to their children at any given time?). However, I was still curious and I wanted to know why he had such an opinion about a father who could buy him such an expensive phone. One day, he explained, he had been requested to be part of the audience during a performance by a popular comedian. After the performance, all the children were given some cash gift – something less than 2 hundredths of the phone value. On reaching home, his father requested that he lend him the money. The father took the money but never repaid the boy.
The moral of the story? You cannot bribe your way into breaking promises. Breaking promises that you have made to your child and not apologizing for it, may leave a very negative impression on the child about the need to keep promises. If you can’t keep a promise, don’t make it.
Failing to spend time with them
There are times when jobs demand that parents spend a lot of time away from their children. Many of these times, such issues justify staying away from our families. However, the greatest problems arise when parents fail to give their children time even when we can. Again, when parents fail to spend time with them, they must be ready to take time to explain why things need to be the way they are. Remember: it is not just issue of “I provide for your needs and you need to know that I must spend time away from you.”
Failing to praise them when there is obvious success
The most common trait among children is their desire to please their parents with their actions. Such an attitude though, may disappear when the relationship between you and your children turn sour. However, praises from the parents must sound genuine. Praises which are not genuine may only end up making them to fail to see the truth in future genuine praises. Again, when praising a child, make sure that you link the praise to the child’s actions and not to the child himself. Your love and support for the child should be unconditional but your support for his actions should only support him if the actions agree to what you know to be right for the children.
Being committed to not offending your children unnecessarily is a good thing. However, we should be careful here: There are so many things that no matter how much you try, your child may still act offended. Sometimes, these may simply be manipulative tactics that the child is employing so as to make you change your mind. You as a parent shouldn’t succumb to such manipulative tactics. Succumbing to such tactics may make the child end up believing that he is in the driver’s seat and make him develop the habit of playing mind games.
