Parenting has never been perfect, but there are five very large problems with the way we parent today that are almost unique to our time. They are;
1. A Fear of Listening to our Children.
Many parents blindly trust the advice of childless parenting experts and famous nannies whose advice is almost always ‘parent centric’. The experts almost always side with the parents and not with the children, warning parents that if they let their children get their own way that they will raise little dictators. Parents are warned to“be strong” and “don’t let him get his own way“. If the child protests they are warned“she is just trying to manipulate you, don’t listen to her cries”. Parents are taught that their toddler’s opinions don’t matter and their teen’s matter even less.
Children are not perceived as ‘real people’ with real needs. Their opinions don’t matter as much as ours, so they are belittled and ignored. If a child grows up believing that their opinions do not matter, especially to their parents, they will be far less likely to confide in their parents in the years to come when they really need to. Or as the famous quote goes “If you don’t listen eagerly to the little stuff when they are little, they won’t tell you the big stuff when they are big, because to them all of it has always been big stuff.”
by Sarah Ockwell-Smith - Huffington Post
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