Last week I wrote about the importance of nurture and structure in parenting. Every parent believes that he/she cares for their children and the actions they take arise out of their good intentions. However, parents are not aware that children see and experience actions of their parents and cannot perceive the intentions behind the actions.
Hence, some of the care and their actions can also have negative repercussions in the overall development of the child. There are six types of nurturing and structuring styles — abusive, conditional, assertive, supportive, overindulgent and neglectful. I will focus on two styles of nurturing this week.Abuse
Abuse can be emotional, physical and verbal. Some parents say, “I beat or scold my child for their good.” They are not aware of the negative consequences this style has on their children. I have listened to clients who, irrespective how old they grow, cannot forget the hurtful words their parents used on them as children. Once a 20-year-old boy who was absenting himself from classes said , “Anyway my parents say I am useless, let me make it real for them.”
When children hear comments that belittle them and make them feel inadequate, they begin to believe that they are not important and not wanted. This belief has a great negative impact on their self esteem. A 22-year-old girl, who had come to me to work on her low self esteem said, “I am not able to accept that I am beautiful”. When as an adolescent she used to look at herself in the mirror, she would hear one of her parent taunting her with “whom are you planning to attract”? While any form physical violence on children is an abuse, words or comments which violate and labels the children is a misuse of power and authority. This has to be totally avoided for the wellness of children.
Conditional care
The children in this situation get care only based on satisfying certain conditions of their parents. The underlying message the children pick from their parents is, “as long as you live up to my expectations and satisfy me, you will get my love”. An example is, “I won’t show my love to you when you don’t listen to me” in such circumstances the child has to live up to expectations, to earn care otherwise they won’t get love from their parents.
Children who grow in these circumstances do not express their needs to their parents or sometimes children learn to not have any needs of their own. These children end up pleasing others at the cost of neglecting their wants and needs. It is good when parents become conscious of what all conditions for love they have laid for their children by doing the following exercise. Take time and visualise your relationship with your child. Under what circumstances do you tend to withdraw support and love from your child? What are your concerns in showing unconditional love? Such awareness will help in changing your parenting styles and this will bring a positive change in the child and your relationship with the child. Watch this space for more on parenting styles.