Why don’t you grow up?
Sounds familiar? How many times you as a parent have said this to your child, or bring into the conversation especially to teenagers? Well, I have been guilty of using this in my conversations in the past.
As parents, sometime we all get frustrated, and I fully understand. And,
the question I have for all those parents is that how many times they have allowed their children to grow up?
What exactly “growing up” mean to us parents?
Does it mean to be nice and not naughty? Does it mean that children should know the difference between good and bad, should they have better manners or be more mature? Well, its hard to answer. Isn't it? Of course, because it all depends on your family values, your circumstances and many other factors including if you are addressing to a boy or girl child.
Anyway, arguments and frustration leads to comments like this and most importantly it is very damaging for a parent child relationship. Negative comments like this only harm the relationship and furthermore, parents who do say it to their children need to sit back and check if they did provide sufficient tools to their children to grow up. And, the tools do not mean, shelter, food, education etc, which most parents do try to provide depending on individual’s circumstance.
I have a question for those parents who say it to their children, have they provided necessary tools and an environment for a child to grow up? What efforts they have made or help they have provided to their children to grow up.
Majority of the parents work so hard on educating their children, providing them with clothing, shelter, food etc. But, we cannot call these tools! Perhaps we have not taught them the necessary Life Skills such as when to say no or how to say no, We get so engrossed in helping our children to be successful and somewhere along the line forget them to teach how to deal with failure constructively. How to face adversities in life, how to handle rejection, how to deal with peer pressure, how to handle bullying, how to be assertive, how to deal with stress and anxiety etc.
Instead, many a times, we unintentionally end up doing the opposite by our own actions and expect them to grow up! Its like telling your children to FOCUS on your studies. FOCUS on your sports etc! Well when was the last time you taught your child HOW TO FOCUS? May be never or long time ago!
As far as I have noticed that today's children want to group up faster than ever. Its us parents who need to brush up our own parenting skills and stop using the language which can have a deter mental affect on our relationships with children.
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