This is the truth of it – We have become child-pleasing parents! They have got it right to make us feel like WE don’t measure up…. Imagine that. “Is our home good enough for you honey bunny?” “Is my car up to scratch darling?” “Am I there at your beck and call when you forget your tennis racquet at home?” “Never mind, I will move my meetings around and cancel my coffee with a friend and drive to school to make sure you have what you need Munchkins”. How irresponsible of us to take away the opportunity of learning about, and experiencing, consequence. This is an imperative life skill. Willingness to please and make our parents proud is almost considered old fashioned and this principle has been turned on its head. It’s us, THE PARENTS, doing flipping headstands.
Not all children are winners in everything and they need to know this, learning the skill of dealing with disappointment before they reach the real world or they are going to suffer and judge themselves harshly when they don’t succeed at everything – “What do you mean I didn’t make it? I must be stupid and useless”. I see it in the young adults – completely inadequate in their social skills and unable to process disappointment, feeling like complete failures when a single hurdle appears that they cannot jump. We have led them to believe that they are good at EVERYTHING, haven’t we?
CALL TO ACTION
Some good clips of children responding badly to losing
Next session:
Resilience
