Being a Parent of Today's Children
The aim of many mothers and fathers is primarily to raise healthy and happy children. Like every mother and father, you strive to ensure that your children are self-confident, able to solve the problems they encounter, have developed social skills, are successful and respectful. In order to understand them better and treat them in a healthier way, you read many books, follow experts, and maybe even get help from a pedagogue or psychologist. Even though you provide material and moral opportunities and parental attitudes, you may think and worry that you cannot raise them as you thought or expected.
Perhaps you have said these sentences many times, which I often hear from many mothers and fathers in interviews with parents:
“I guess we failed at being parents!”
“We do everything, but he just can't be happy. He is always unhappy and has a sullen face.”
“We could not teach our child to share, to think about others, to appreciate others.”
“He never fulfills his responsibilities, he does not care about reward or punishment. ”
“We don't know where we went wrong?”
“We work so hard for him, but he acts like our efforts mean nothing to him.”
Why? ?
First of all, since we raise our children in a child-oriented family structure, thoughts, feelings, expectations, behavior, respect, etc. We have difficulty understanding them because they are very different from our childhood in terms of many features.
We, the children of the 1970s and later, that is, today's parents, grew up in parent-centered families. Our family did not adapt to us, we adapted to our families' lives. For example, if our school was far from our home, we would walk to school with our friends. None of our families would move closer or change schools. When we had a fight with our friend, our family did not try to talk to our friend or his family or intervene in the situation. If we had a ball or a bicycle, another one would not be taken and we would leave it behind. We used to share it with our loved ones. However, most of the time no one told us our responsibilities. We left it needless to say. It was as if we knew everything that was expected of us and we acted according to these expectations. A look or a hint was often enough. A single eye movement from our mother was enough for us to understand how to behave around the guest, and a single word from our father was enough for us not to insist. Even the existence of concepts such as not going to school, not doing homework, not paying attention to school uniforms and rules, choosing foods we love instead of foods we dislike, or not eating the food cooked that day was out of the question for most of us. We were dealing with friendship problems ourselves and doing our homework. We knew we had to go home before the weather got colder or our father came home in the evening. Most of us would not even think of insisting on requests such as toys, equipment or clothes. A pair of shoes, a birthday gift or a report card gift that our family bought for us was enough to make us happy. We wouldn't know how to thank you out of joy. We would think many times before asking for something to be taken from our family. We would ask, thinking about whether we had money or whether we would cause an economic problem, and we would even wait without saying it. We were patient children. Even though we grew up in financial comfort, we were children who did not demand much. Even if we questioned our parents' behavior and what they should have done, we were children who mostly did not express them, and if we did, we expressed them in a very respectful way. Many of us did not experience adolescence/adolescence in a way that was as troublesome, stressful and challenging to our families as our children. We even started to notice and learn the concept of adolescence from our environment or when our own child was experiencing adolescence. We can list many more differences like these. Despite positive or negative circumstances, we were happy children, or we tried to be. Moreover, our families were not the mothers and fathers whom we knew were there and felt that they would be behind us in every situation and condition, but they were always involved in our daily lives and tried to be in them. We were freer children and young people.
Now, family structures, mother and father roles, Economic responsibilities and sharing within the family, in short, social conditions have changed a lot. However, the style of raising children has also changed. We have evolved from a parent-centered family structure to a child-centered family structure. Of course, this change has had very positive aspects in terms of the development of our children. For example, our children can express their wishes and thoughts more easily within the family; They can share their thoughts and feelings easily. Thus, they had the chance to discover that they were individuals earlier. However, inevitably there were changes in our children that we, as parents, had difficulty understanding, often surprised us and left us unsure of what to do, and evaluated negatively. Because, we have become parents who try to do many things according to their children and push themselves and their circumstances to do so. Most importantly, we became parents who did what their children needed to do and thought and felt on their behalf. For example, we do his homework so that he doesn't get embarrassed or get low grades in class, his friend has an I-pad with him and we immediately buy it for him so that he doesn't feel bad, so that he doesn't get upset about illness, accident, death, etc. We do not talk about life events or we try to act normally as if these events never happened.. Many more examples like these can be given. As a result, our children become emotionally weaker, have inadequate problem-solving and coping skills, and need adult support.
Have we overdone putting children at the center of our lives? By offering everything to them, trying to fulfill their wishes, and even more, have we prevented them from thinking, finding solutions, thus realizing and taking on their responsibilities, sharing, and learning to think about others? In other words, it would not be wrong to think that we are slowing down the development of our children by preventing them from gaining experience in these matters.
Another important issue that plays a role in our difficulty in understanding or raising our children is our expectations and plans for our children. ir. Every parent has a child profile that they designed in their mind before having a child. When she has a child, she tries to raise that child, thinking that she has the child she planned for. She sets goals for him and wants her child to meet what she expects from the child she conceives. You must realize that your expectations for your child are your own, they are your wishes, and your child is not responsible for them. In other words, you should know that your child is not and will not be the child you planned and dreamed of. You should not overlook that he/she will have different individual characteristics, thoughts and dreams than you. For example, you may want your child to be a very good athlete or a very successful surgeon. For this reason, you can expect him to be a disciplined, planned, organized child and to keep his academic success high. He may have a slightly scattered and relaxed personality, or he may be interested in theatre. If you force him according to your own expectations, it is inevitable that he will be a child who defies you, conflicts with you, or is withdrawn, goalless, and unhappy.
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