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Encourage Children to be Normal

Domenick J. Maglio, Ph.D. Neo-Traditionalist

Unfortunately for children we live in affluent times. Parents are busy making money to live a lifestyle that stifles children from maturing into self-reliant people.

Instead of children being guilty for not helping their parents or misbehaving, parents are guilty of not spending enough time with them. This parental guilt is channeled into presents and spending “quality time.” The limited time available to parents for the child is concentrated on pleasing him by visiting attractions or playing with the child as a friend. There is little time devoted to teaching the child to be a giver to the family.

The parents and others often recognize the over-indulgence although the more insidious and corrosive behavior is the parent becoming a willing servant to the child. When the parent does the things the child can and should do for himself, the child is being “serviced” as if he were helpless.

Servicing one’s child robs the child of developing skills, habits and analytic powers to reach the goals that are essential to becoming an adult. It starts with parents having to provide a multitude of snack meals on demand for their child. This snacking on the run, “grazing,” means parents have to be equipped at all times and situations with various treats to entice the child to eat. A parent hurriedly fills a plastic bowl to insure minimal nutritional requirements for the child. The child does not develop a schedule for meals nor learn to acquire an appreciation for a variety of foods.

Children are serviced with Pampers well after the traditional 18 months to two years recommended for potty training. The new, improved and enormous diapers allow parents and children to delay the expectation and needed consistency for potty training. Eventually the parent or child becomes sufficiently embarrassed by his inappropriateness when he begins school and is compared to other children. Upon entering school, the teasing by others is a wake-up call that forces the parent to start the overdue training in many areas.

Today’s school has changed from an exciting opportunity for a child to become independent of his parents to a parental obligation to insure the success of their child. The lack of faith in their child’s ability in school and the parent’s need to be perfect parents increases their anxiety. They attempt to micromanage their child while at school. This means they want the teacher to report daily every aspect of the child’s behavior.

The teacher hears “we did well on the test or the homework.” The child is absolved of any responsibility for his own work. The parents have to know the child’s assignments so they can do a more impressive job than they think the child is capable of doing. Without knowing the serious negative implications of doing the child’s homework, they undermine more and more of the child’s initiative to learn.

Parent’s primary function is raising a child to be a successful adult, not an over indulged, unmotivated, dependent, chronologically old baby. This servicing game produces an increasingly frustrated parent and a lazy child with many self-doubts.

The antidote to this destructive game is to give one’s child courage to face the challenges of life. Encouraging a child to do things on his own means you have to believe any child who puts his mind to an endeavor can accomplish it. Parents have to accept mistakes are a necessary part of learning even though these errors take time to correct.

Modern parents need to stop feeling guilty for not bonding with their child 24/7 and start to feel guilty for not encouraging the child to grow up to be normal. Being competent, confident and self-reliant comes from reaching family and society’s expectations in a timely manner. When parents hear the child say, “Help me do it myself,” they are on the right path to raising a healthy, normal child.

Dr. Maglio is the author of Invasion Within and Essential Parenting. He is a psychotherapist and the owner/director of Wider Horizons School. Visit: www.drmaglio.com.