You Can’t Protect Your Children Forever
Question
Dr.Braccio: I try konya merkez eskort to shield our children from disappointments. The problem is they seem to be bothered more and more about anything as they get older. My husband has always said I go too far in protecting them. Now, I must agree. My intentions have been good but my nine and ten year olds were so depressed and down a whole evening and into the next day when they could not see the movie we wanted to go to because all tickets were sold out. They were very upset and made a scene. I even tried to buy tickets from persons in line until my husband gently pulled me away. What should I do? My behavior and theirs is typical these days. I’m feeling very ineffective as a mother.
Answer
You are a loving mother. The problem is that you are trying to make a very imperfect earth perfect for your children. Many dysfunctional and chronically unhappy persons are in effect “created” because they never learn to deal with the normal ups and downs of life. Do not let this happen to your children. Emotional resiliency is a very health quality that is fostered through the learning of skills and adaption of attitudes through the trial-and-error, cause-and-effect experiences in our lives.
How one deals with adversity and challenge in life often determines a person’s character. To take “the road less traveled” and effectively help self and others is a choice a person makes after learning to effectively and humanely deal with problems one encounters in life. To engender these characteristics, skills and attitudes, you will need to model and practice them.
The key life quality you need to develop is balance If a bully is beating up one of your children at school, then you need to intervene on their behalf. On the other hand, if your child is just not getting along with someone or the person is just not being nice, you can advise your child on how to address the problem but do not become heavily involved and get mad at the other child or call his parents. That usually will only enhance the problem in the long run.
For your children to be so depressed over not being able to go to a movie for an extended period of time and making a scene is not normal even with a broad definition of “normal”. Disappointment would be reasonable, but not sulking and being depressed for a “whole evening and into the next day”.
Because the beliefs and behaviors of you and the children are so ingrained, you will have a very hard time making the changes you will need to do to help your children be able to deal with the normal disappointments in life. Accept that you love your children and have indeed given them a good life. To now show your love, you must let them cry, be hurt and sort out normal problems for themselves unless something very bad is happening to them. To be supportive and an available loving parent giving good advice is good parenting. You need to separate your esteem as a parent from your children’s emotional mood manipulations. In this way, you can develop a more supportive and effective loving approach to your relationship with your children.
The following are some things you can do:
1. Work with your husband to get perspective and consistency in your treatment of the children. His involvement could bring a positive force to help solve the problem.
2. Be an adviser to your children to help teach them to appropriately assess problems and how to solve them.
3. Admit to your children you have been too involved in their lives and need to back off.
4. Have family meetings to discuss how to appropriately deal with everyday life problems.
5. When problems occur and your children get unreasonably depressed and upset, help them use positive self-talk to give them a positive outlook. This is key because what we think strongly determines how we feel. You need to work on this yourself. Examples would be as follows:
Negative Self-Talk: “Life sucks because it’s raining and we can’t ride our bikes.” Positive Self-Talk: “Find something else to do and have fun. Ride your bikes when the sun comes out.”
Negative Self-Talk: “I wanted to see Bill today. He’s not home. My whole day’s ruined”.
Positive Self-Talk: “Call someone else. Find things to do.” Negative Self-Talk: “All the seats are sold for the movie. I’m so down and feel horrible.”
Positive Self-Talk: “Let’s pick another one. We also can go tomorrow and see it. The world is going to go on.”
You may find an experienced therapist could help you have appropriate perspective on what happens to your children and their reactions.
The road to change will be hard and slow, but the end result of well-balanced children who can deal with the regular rigors of life is worth the effort.