3 Common Parenting Mistakes That Damage Your Child’s Self Esteem

It goes without saying, every parent desires the best for their kids and will often go the extra mile to give them the best training. Unfortunately, these well-mannered acts if not properly conducted often come out as parenting mistakes that can damage a child’s self-esteem.

A child with low self-esteem will have trouble surviving and living to his fullest potential in virtually every aspect of his life – school, work, community, and so on. Oftentimes, low self-esteem can further lead to depression and other mentally degrading emotions.

There are no doubts hundreds of mistakes parents tend to make, but these three discussed below are the commonest so far.

Criticizing Your Children

As a parent you need to choose your words wisely and carefully even when your children provoke you. Consciously or subconsciously, your words are shaping them – whether for good or bad, depending on the type of words you allow to escape through your lips. Criticisms do no good, they only damage your child’s self-esteem.

Rather than pointing out only what they do wrong and attacking them, learn to hear them out first. And also, let them know what they can do right if such a situation ever occurs again.

This doesn’t mean praising them for their mistakes or wrongdoings. There are better ways to tell your children they’ve been rebellious than through words of criticisms or threats. You can correct your children without criticizing them depending on your reactions and the words that come out of your mouth.

In general, allow your words to carry healing power rather than injuries that will leave a lifetime scar on your children.

Comparing Them To Others

The act of comparison has caused more damages to children’s mental health than most other factors put together.

As a parent, sometimes you wish your firstborn, Alex would be as smart as the last born Kevin, or your first daughter could be as polite and obedient as your neighbor’s daughter. It doesn’t matter whether the comparison is between your children or other people’s children. The fact remains that you’re killing your children’s morale.

You may not know but children can sense when they’re being compared to others without even expressing it verbally. How? Because it’ll always reveal in your actions and dealings with them. When such happens, the message you pass across is that they’re not and will never be good enough. Most children grow up feeling and living this way for the rest of their lives.

To avoid this, the best thing you can do is accept that every child is unique and different in their ways.

Trying To Control Their Lives

Inarguably, as a parent, your first move is to protect your children by all means. But there’s only a level to which you can do this without coming off as controlling or overprotective. This is a parenting mistake that can scare your children away from you.

As much as you will want to shield them from repeating the mistakes you made at their age by telling them what and what not to do, this isn’t always the best approach. Remember that when children don’t make their own mistakes they don’t learn and cannot grow.

It’s hard but you will want to give them space to go out and make their own mistakes. Just be sure that when they finally do, you’re there and ready to welcome them with an open arm, not a ‘judgey’ one that says “I told you so”.

In conclusion,  directly or indirectly, your actions have profound effects on what your children are and what they grow to become later in life. An average child’s performance can be traced back to the home he’s from and the kind of treatments he’s receiving.

So, if you’re guilty of these above-listed parenting mistakes, consider making the necessary changes now while you still have the time to. Believe it, your child’s self-esteem depends largely on it.