Yesterday, I listened to a radio program with a child psychologist as a guest. I’m not even sure of the program name, host or guest psychologist identifications, but did pay attention to the discussion. I have some girlfriends who have been inflicted with New Mama disease and a recurring double ear infection. Since I had unofficially diagnosed them beforehand, I thought sharing the following would be beneficial.
Here are the bare-boned discussion points:
1. Women (mothers) tend to presume the greatest role in early parenting, so nurturing children almost becomes the mother’s identity. This is a no-no. Women often feel as if fathers (men) aren’t as concerned. But because fathers don’t spend the majority of their day parenting, they don’t transition into another identity, stereotypically. Mothers or caretakers should be careful of this, because:
a. While children are growing, a mother’s or primary caretaker’s true identity may be lost. And when the children are grown, mothers tend to expect children to compensate them for their lost identities by expecting too much of their children, when mothers should never have allowed their children to become their identity.
b. While children are still young, this cross identity becomes problematic within all types of friendships/relationships. For example, a new mom out to lunch with girlfriends deems the conversation not centered around child-rearing, care,
or children as “boring”. New mom finds it difficult to relate to anything outside of her new-found identity.
c. Over-saturation of this leads to adopting the language and mind of the child. For example, the new mom at the dinner table with other adults gears the communicable language towards a child, “Excuse me, Mommy will be right back, I’ve got to go potty.”
2. All of this kind of stuff leads to raising self-centered, self-entitlement children. Children are born into a family, and the family doesn’t revolve around-although it must adjust to the needs and presence of-a child.
3. When a parent feels as if a child should be occupied every single minute s/he is awake, the parent raises self-engrossed individuals who usually are high-stressors when they get older. When this type of child is age 5/6, the child will be bored every five minutes, because s/he never learned how to sit, be content, and be preoccupied without being entertained. If a child does not learn how to be content when nothing is moving or surrounding him/her, that child develops an, “I’m bored, me, me, me,” mentality and always has to have something, or else he has issues.
4. When a child is reared with too many things, when that individual grows up and is unable to maintain the lifestyle, or the parent/s can’t maintain the lifestyle while the child grows up, that child won’t know how to function because s/he will likely be self-entitled to things. Children should never think they will always have what they want.
5. The home is not a hotel. At a hotel, a maid is on duty. At home, children should be taught the value of having a home and participate in the upkeep of the home to learn responsibility. A child shouldn’t feel the pressure of maintaining a home because children are supposed to be secure. Yet, a proper balance requires children to know that the entire run of the house is not theirs, either. Children must learn to pick things up, stop touching, etc.
6. Children are not cute when they behave badly. They must be taught what is good and what is bad, and their feelings don’t matter when they do bad things. Otherwise, you create individuals who will grow up to override what is wrong and value their own feelings. Children should be corrected and know the clear differences between right and wrong.
7. Parents should not try to make children overachievers. Parents often project their own standards and desires onto children. A parent may want to find a pre-school program with competitive math programs. The psychologist said these types of parents are lunatics. Children need time to just be children and be in social environments which teach them how to function well with other children. They should not be introduced to competition and pressure at such a young age.
8. Finally, mothers and fathers shouldn’t feel bad about their parenting skills. They should learn about how to raise good people with as much effort as parents try to learn what is necessary to be competitive in the marketplace to keep their jobs. Parenting requires continual learning.
All parents may not agree with these particular ideals when parenting. Yet, the advisory exists to at the very least, challenge parents to consciously define their own values, standards and review how well their child/children actually responds to such standards.
Mulloverthis.
