Anxious to make achievers out of their kids, many parents are on gross overdrive.
Parents today are loading their kids with everything that they didn’t have - opportunities, things, holidays, exposure.
They are putting out good money and ferrying kids to this coaching class and that camp, in the hope that they are preparing them for future competition, and teaching them lessons in application and achievement.
But in this overdrive to ensure that kids excel at everything they do, many are committing a grave parenting mistake: failing to prepare kids emotionally and mentally for the adult world.
By focusing so fretfully on giving children everything so that they can excel, what we are increasingly seeing are superficially well-developed children who are very often, actually, sad, lonely, confused and lack self-confidence because they haven’t fulfilled parental expectations. Some of them may be depressed too, while showing no outer signs that the treadmill that you’ve put them on is just not working for them.
So while you may think you’re giving your child a head start, you’re actually ensuring that he/she will always be held back by deep-rooted self-doubt and fear of trying anything for fear of not excelling.
How will children ‘dare to dream’ if you set them a goal (your goal) before they even start? You may not spell it out to them, but children pick up on the fact that their parents are desperate for them to ‘excel’. And some parents go right ahead and spell it out: “I paid an arm and a leg for that creativity camp and what do you have to show for it?”
So step back a little. It’s great that you can give your kids all the exposure that you didn’t have. Now have a little faith: that what you are doing may not give you quick and decisive ‘results’. But it is definitely not ‘wasted’ – it all goes into the making of a child. That piano class may not lead her to become a performer, but it will no doubt get her to listen to music with a more evolved ear and enjoy it better. Maybe not now, but later in life, and for keeps. That will not go away. However, it definitely will, if the piano class is stuck sideways in her throat because of your expectations. So too with tennis, or football, or any other of the stuff that you take them for.
Take another step back. Think of how many of the things that you’re hoping your kids excel in are actually what you wanted while growing up. Equally, how many of the fears you express on his behalf are actually your own anxieties? Sift through these thoughts, and you will then see your child as an emerging, forming individual, who cannot be constantly honed to perfection by you.
What you provide your kids simply has to be in your role as an enabler, not a puppeteer. This is an urgent change in perception that you need to put in place, or else you run the risk of your children dodging your grand schemes and choosing to do nothing. The primary thing is that your kids should enjoy thoroughly what they do. That sense of enjoyment and participation will feed their minds and souls far better than the ‘excelling’ that seems to be such a modern-day parenting password.