Three Ways Parental Controls Can Be Harmful

The aim of a good education is to transmit the best values ​​and norms to the child as he/she matures and prepares for his/her autonomy. Parents should never forget that this is the ultimate goal and the process should be slow.

Some parents fear the danger they see in the world and abuse their parental authority to protect their children  and keep them away from potential threats, whether real or fictional. These fears, and the way they deal with them, are often a result of their own upbringing.

There is no doubt that controlling your children is very tempting. It’s much easier to survive every day that way. It’s not for nothing that people say that prevention is better than cure. But no one said raising children was easy. It’s even getting harder. Parents have to compete with an infinite number of external factors that they have no control over, but developing an obsession with control is not the best way to deal with this.

While a little control is good, an obsession with it is not only harmful to children, but also to parents, who carry a lot of weight and responsibility on their shoulders. And worse, they also carry a lot of guilt.

Your child will resist

Resistance is almost natural, because it is part of shaping autonomy. But there are many different ways to rebel. Revolting against the world is not the same as revolting against your parents. Revolting against the established order is not the same as revolting against the house rules.

Children need a certain amount of freedom. If you try to control every aspect of their lives, they will increasingly claim their autonomy and become less and less reasonable. If parents insist on controlling what their children play with, what clothes to wear, what books to read, and other aspects of their lives, sooner or later the child will resist.

Of course  , as a parent, you have to supervise certain things and guide your children, making sure that they make the right choices. But there is a difference between leading your child and imposing your will on him or her. Let them make their own choices and if you disagree, ask them to explain their decision. If you think their decision is wrong, guide them in the right direction, help them make a better decision, and make them think about the consequences of their decisions. Let them experience these consequences firsthand, as long as it is not harmful to the health and safety of the child.

You will discourage their creativity

If you continuously monitor what your child is doing and turn them into your shadow, they will likely be less creative as a result. If people who are as important to them as their parents do not validate their decisions, they will feel insecure if they have to make a decision on their own and will always choose to let someone else make that decision if no one encourages them to do it themselves. to make a choice.

If this doesn’t seem important, it might be because you think creativity is worthless or you only need it for drawing, writing stories, or decorating a house. But creativity is much more than that. Creativity is the ability to solve problems in different ways,  to review these problems, to see things from different angles. If you are creative, you can not only do good things, but you can also become great, a great person. You can overcome adversity and be whatever you want to be true. Why would you deny that to your child?

Don’t tell them how to do things right. Give them a chance to find a solution. Have them find different ways to focus and solve problems. And if they fix the problem, who cares how they did it? What is important is that they have found their own way. Understand that sometimes they are right and sometimes they can see it even better than you can.

Your child becomes a nervous person

Too much control will lock their minds in a small cage in which they cannot move. Imagine yourself locked up, without knowing why, in a small room from which you cannot escape.

How long would it be before you started walking around restlessly, trying to escape? This is the kind of fear your child will experience if you try to control every minute of the day, if you try to control every moment, if you don’t give them any space.

Just because you think you have everything under control doesn’t mean you really are. If the door of the room opens because your child no longer fits in the cage, if he or she breaks out and throws it away, you will realize that you were never in control of anything. You will see a nervous person emerge from the cage, doing the exact opposite of what you are saying, but not daring to make any decisions.