WHY CRITICISM WON'T HELP YOUR CHILD THRIVE. HERE'S WHAT WORKS INSTEAD
One of the things that makes parenting so tough is that you don’t always see the effects of what you do right away.
As you raise them from childhood to adulthood, there will be many short-term goals, overarched by an all-important long-term one – to help them arrive at adulthood safe, happy, and well-adjusted. Along the way, you’ll make plenty of mistakes. You’ll speak when you should stay quiet, stay quiet when you should speak, get too distracted, too busy, too exhausted. There will be many times that you get it right, and there’ll be many that you get it wrong. As long as these mistakes are balanced with enough love, connection, warmth, and presence, the mistakes you make won’t break them. Sometimes though, the things you do as a parent can have long-lasting consequences that you don’t see coming – even when you do them with loving intent.
Your words are powerful. They can light your children up or they can land like little spears. When criticism happens too often, those little spears will find their way deep into the core of them. They’ll do damage and they’ll leave scars. This is regardless of how that criticism is delivered – whether as discipline, frustration, teaching a lesson, or otherwise.
Research has found that children who have critical parents learn to pay less attention to faces that express any type of emotions, both positive and negative. This limits their capacity to ‘read’ people effectively, a skill that is critical for building and maintaining relationships. It is also important for their own wellbeing, as it shapes the meaning they make about the intentions, needs and wants of others and their feelings towards them. The increased tendency to avoid positive emotion (as well as negative emotion) undermines their capacity to receive positive information. Researchers suggest that this could potentially create a vulnerability to anxiety or depression.
The researchers suggest that the tendency to avoid paying attention to facial expressions is an adaptive measure – and it makes sense. People are wired to turn towards the things that feel safe, and away from the things that might cause harm – and anything that makes people feel unsafe, or which calls into question who they are and their inherent ‘good’, counts as harm. The researchers suggest that children who are exposed consistently to criticism develop a greater need to avoid facial expression, as a way to avoid the feelings that come with parental criticism. When children are exposed to consistent criticism, they are primed to expect criticism not only from their parents, but from others as well.
When your children get it wrong. What to do instead.
Let the focus be on their good, not their deficiencies.
For all children, the first messages about how the world sees them comes from their parents, or whoever is in charge of their primary care. When these messages are presented with compassion and warmth, and when they focus on the child’s potential rather than their deficiencies, children will be more likely to approach the world with a sense of belonging, self-respect and importance. You want that. You want them to soar, and they can’t do that if their hearts are heavy with self-doubt.
You might feel as though you have control and influence when you criticize, but the truth is, it’s an illusion. Criticism drives the need to avoid criticism, and this becomes the primary influencer of behavior. Sometimes this will lead to good behavior. Other times it will lead to secrecy and lies. Nobody wants to feel stupid, or bad, or less than, or as though they’ve let down (again) the people they care about. The risk with constant criticism is that children will be more likely to redirect their behavior to avoid that criticism, rather than because of a more intrinsic sense of the ‘right’ thing to do.
This doesn’t mean that you always lift them over their mistakes, and out of the way of discomfort. It’s important to let them know when their behavior could do with some tweaking. Sometimes they will need redirecting towards a healthier way of being. What it means is responding to them with compassion and patience, and in such a way that gives them the space to safely explore the lessons they need to learn, without hurting their sense of self. It means speaking to them in a way that shines the light on their strengths, rather than their deficiencies. This will also help to keep your connection with them strong, and you want this if want influence. When you have influence, you can use it to impart and strengthen the values on which they will base their decisions and their behavior.
Don’t take their behavior personally. It’s a marathon not a sprint, and they’re doing exactly what they’re meant to be doing – even their mistakes.
It’s so easy to take the behavior of your children personally.
You have been beside them, steering and influencing them since the beginning of them. What does it mean then, when they’re rude, moody, or when they lash out or push against your boundaries with force and daring? It means they’re normal. It means you’re raising small humans into big ones, and giving them the space to do it their way, to make the mistakes they need to make, to learn the lessons they need to learn. It means they aren’t perfect, which is a relief – perfection comes with way too many problems of its own.
There are opportunities for learning in the mistakes your children make, but some of those lessons will take time. Sometimes a long time. You squander those opportunities when you try to direct them through fear. Fear might be a short-term motivator, but it’s quite useless in imparting values and strengthening your influence in the long-term. Your children have a long time to learn the lessons they need to learn. In the meantime, their most valuable compass is you. If you want them to listen, to be open to your influence and your guidance, you need to give it in a way that is easy for them to receive, not in a way that makes them want to shut down.
When you try too hard to control them through criticism or through any other means that hurts their spirit, you lose them. You might force compliance in the moment, but any behavior that is driven by the need to stay out of trouble will always be more fragile than behavior that is driven by the need to do the right thing. The more you can let go of the need to be perfect parents, the more you can respond to your children with compassion and wisdom, and in a way that opens up your influence. When you treat them as though they already are the people you want them to be, you give them a powerful lift towards getting there. This doesn’t look like harsh discipline or criticism. It looks like a gentle, affirming conversation which lights the way forward and widens the lens on the good inside them and what they are capable of. And it’s okay if this takes time.
In conclusion
When you’re dealing out compassion, you need to serve a healthy dose to yourself too. You’re human, and being a parent doesn’t make you infallible. You’re going to get exhausted, distracted, and frustrated, and sometimes you’ll say the wrong thing. Your children won’t break if you get it wrong sometimes. You’re their heroes, and if they can see you getting it wrong sometimes, it gives them permission to get it wrong sometimes too. You want that. You want them to be brave, and to stretch. You want them to test their limits and yours. And when they stretch too far, which they will, you want them to know that it’s okay, that you’re there, and that none of that takes away from the fact that they’re your heroes too.
What’s important is that when you make a mistake, you name it, own it and apologize. Then you reconnect. It’s equally important that when they make a mistake, you respond with compassion and warmth and make it about their behavior, not about who they are. There will be times you need to call their behavior into question, and give them what they need to learn and grow, but it’s important that this is done in a way that doesn’t cause them to question their inherent worth, and their inherent goodness. Criticism might work better in the short-term, but building strong, healthy, happy humans takes time and there are no shortcuts. By speaking to their strengths, even when they get it wrong, and by doing this with warmth and compassion, you make it safe for them to open up to your influence, explore their behavior, and discover better ways of being.
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