"As a child,
critical eye of my father seemed to follow me around wherever I went." (Arthur C. Clarke) It's quite easy for most fathers to look at their kids with a critical eye. And why not? There's a lot riding on outcome of your kids' development. There's nagging worry that you're not doing your job well enough and that your child will develop "problems." There's also fear of being judged as an incompetent or uninvolved father by others. And there is relentless presence of your children, making mistakes by truckload while you watch.
They do make mistakes. Lots of them. And you have a number of choices about how you respond to those mistakes and how critical you are of your kids. Let's consider some different ways of looking at this issue to see if we can get some perspective:
A Different Angle
If you're a father who's really honest with yourself, you'll acknowledge that much of judgement and criticism that you have towards your kids is really your own critical judgement about yourself. It's usually easier to be critical of your kids than to turn spotlight on yourself, isn't it? If you're not careful as a father, you may run risk of "teaching" your kids low self-esteem through your criticism and judgement of them.
Doesn't seem fair, does it?
Fathers who see their kids as capable and whole, on other hand, will find far fewer opportunities to be critical of their kids.
There are other reasons why you should be more understanding with your kids. One reason is to consider what it's really like to be a child. For instance, can you imagine formidable combination of having a brain that's not yet able to exhibit emotional control and living in a house where you're constantly told what to do by your parents?
Think about it for a minute. How many times do our kids get told what to do each day? How do you handle getting told what to do all time? It's a wonder that kids respond as well as they do.
How About Teenagers?
How about your teens at home? They certainly should be able to respond better to parents based on their experience, right? Not according to a recent study by National Institute of Health.
