Children require unconditional emotional, spiritual, physical, and financial support, especially in their formative years.
When we show preferences amongst our children based on certain criteria like academic performances, physical appearances, athletic skills, or creativity, we start to create a void and a complex in our children’s minds.
The children who are given more suffer gravely in the long term. Those who don’t receive their due share experience completely different sets of challenges in their lives.
As human beings, our view of the world is shaped by our experiences in our immediate surroundings. So, when we are given a lot of attention for achieving good scores but are admonished when we don’t do well, we learn to recognise these conditions of acceptance. We feel we always have to perform to receive love and acceptance.
When we are labelled as challenging, difficult, and different, we start to see ourselves in those ways. We often learn to not work as hard because our success is unlikely anyway, or so we believe. The “not good enough” syndrome develops and starts to spread its roots deep within our core. We develop confusion in our hearts and minds and struggle to see our worth, especially when we receive no validation. We also continue to believe others matter more: their opinions, their choices, their needs.
The more we say ‘yes’ to others, the better we get at saying ‘no’ to ourselves. That self-deprecation and denial then causes a deep conflict within our beings and introduces increasing distress and uneasiness in our hearts.
We lose ourselves and our purpose, and life starts feeling like an abysmal affair.
I’m not saying that conscious parenting and nurturing our children in a mindful way will mean we will have a society of individuals who face no problems in life.
However, conscious parenting and wholesome nurturing prepares our children to be better equipped with all that life throws at them. They are responsible, resilient, realistic, confident, and definitely more grounded.
Our children thrive when they receive our love, support, and care in a responsible and respectful manner. As parents, our role is not to be perfect but to be available and supportive in all types of situations, especially those where they are not doing well. That’s when our support and care means the most. We can help them learn from their mistakes and challenges rather than find ways to avoid dealing with them or waste valuable resources in finding short cuts or quick fixes in life.
