This is a huge question on most parents’ mind
I mean, which parent will want to see their child suffer right?
Most parents probably want to give their child or children the best life they can give
The best help they can give
The best support they can give
Ironically, that’s where some of the problem lie
Wait, what??
What do you mean the problem lies with helping my child?
Hold your horses and let me explain
You see, I get quite a few parents coming to me with problems relating to their child or children
Mostly communication related but some do include temper issues, arguments, behaviour etc
Anyway, the classic scenario is this
A parent comes to me and cries, saying he/she has been trying to help his/her child for the longest time
Taking care of the child, providing for him or her, making ends meet etc
Ensuring money is always there, sacrificing themselves to ensure the child gets the best quality of food, medicine, education
A big question is why does the child don’t understand the parent’s love?
And instead pick fights with the parent or parents
Treat the house like a hotel
Throw temper and destroy items (sometimes)
That’s the classic scenario
And of course, every family have their unique situation and their unique issues
So there are variations to the above scenario
What the parents do not yet realize, is that them wanting the best for the child might not be the best
Yes yes the explanation is incoming hahaha
You see, imagine you are a parent and have ensured that whatever your son or daughter wants, he or she gets it
Maybe because you have been deprived of such wants when you were a child
Now what you didn’t know
Is that your child might grow up thinking he or she can and will get whatever he or she wants (key here, with little effort), hence expects things to be given or done with no effort
A variation, is the parent starts refusing, the child might throw a temper tantrum, and eventually one of the parents give in so as to stop the child from crying or yelling
Another variation, the child will grow up with the pattern to throw a temper tantrum when he or she does not get what he or she wants
Think of someone who yells or cries at their partner when their partner did not do something they want (ok extreme but follow me for a minute)
What about other situations?
Let’s talk about this one
Sometimes, when a child is unable to finish their homework, the parent will assist, isn’t it?
You know it *wink wink*
Now if you are such a parent, do note that there is this variation
Especially when you seem to always assist in art or math calculations or English spelling
The child might grow up becoming too dependent on the parents assistance
A possible mindset is, “daddy or mummy will always help me”
And this can be a potential problem because the child (growing up to an adult) may not learn how to handle problems on his or her own
Now you might be thinking that the child can learn that when he or she is an adult
Perhaps, or perhaps not
I know of an entrepreneur who starts his own business but borrows money from his parent in order to pay the rent, and he doesn’t do much to get clients
Imagine this person has borrowed $10,000 $20,000 $30,000 from his parent and didn’t do much to earn back the money to return
That is one example of how a parent taking care, helping and looking after became too much, to the point where it became a problem
Obviously the parent got really angry about it
Let’s pause here for a moment
Cause I want to share the story of the butterfly
You may or may not know it
Do you know why the butterfly forms a chrysalis?
And needs to come out of it?
Well yea, the caterpillar turns into a chrysalis and some time later, comes out of it
The chrysalis is for protection of course
However, it does one more thing for survival
You see, when the newly formed butterfly is coming out of the chrysalis
Its wings do not have blood
So when it forces it’s body through the chrysalis
It’s actually forcing the blood and fluids from its body into other parts of the body
Namely, its wings!
Then after some time of drying its body and wings, it can fly
However, if you were to help the butterfly to open its chrysalis
The blood and fluids will not go into the wings
And thus, the wings do not straighten and expand
And the butterfly cannot fly
Hence it will die of starvation or gets eaten by a bird
That’s harsh
And yet, at the same time, relates to you as a parent, taking care of your child
You see, if you protect your child from all dangers, sickness and etc
You risk your child developing negative behaviours, or becoming weak (in whatever sense of physical or emotional or mental)
Why do they show in movies, rich parents who come from poor backgrounds, giving lots of money to their children, thinking their children will be happy, and yet their children end up either selfish, disrespectful or fall into some sort of depression?
Because there is some truth to it
Thankfully not all rich families are like that (I hope)
However, having said that, parents also cannot do not help at all
Complete neglect of the child will definitely be more detrimental to the child’s upbringing
So how?
Cannot help too much and yet cannot don’t help at all
The key, my friend, is balance
To support emotionally and yet allow the child to experience some hardships of life
And when it gets too tough, yes, the child can come back, but only after learning some good lessons
When I was young, I didn’t know how to treasure money (my money got stolen almost every day back in Primary school)
So my parents decided to not give me any pocket money (except a couple of dollars to buy pens and paper)
And back then the trend was Pokemon cards, and I really wanted to buy and play
So what did I do?
Well, I realize that some of my classmates were too lazy to buy their own paper
And they took paper from other classmates (they “borrowed” but never returned so yea)
And I had this idea to sell paper to them at 10 cents a piece
Strangely, they were willing to pay for the paper (not sure if they felt bad about taking others’ paper and not returning or the others decided not to give free paper anymore)
And I had to buy spare paper in case it ran out
Long story short, I earn my own money through selling paper so I can buy my Pokemon cards
Notice how my situation (money getting stolen), created an instance where I do not have enough money, yet instead of asking for money from my parents (receiving too much help), I found an alternative to make money (in this case, a business or entrepreneurial idea)
And now as an adult, I believe, even if i ran out of cash for whatever reason, I know how to survive in this world
So to sum up, after all is said and done
This sharing is to help you open your eyes and be aware of what you are doing when you help your child
So to conclude
Remember the butterfly
Help in moderation
And love your kids <3
PS Love your parents too š
Have an awesome Lunar New Year and here’s wishing you and your family a good deal of happiness, health and growth! š
Share if this inspires you or if you think it might help someone handle their children better š
