It’s common to hear a very typical phrase that says “no one teaches us to be parents. “This couldn’t be more true, mainly because every child is different and there’s no equal recipe for everyone. However, knowing some of the keys Mistakes in parenting can prevent us from doing the same with our children.
Sometimes it is the fear of doing something wrong that will push us to do it, the pressure of our environment can be very great in this regard, so in this article we will propose a change of perspective, put it somewhere between doing everything right and doing everything wrong, and it allows us to continue identifying and correcting the errors in education that we inevitably make several times.
“Students who never need to do what they can’t end up without doing or what they can do. “John Stuart Mill.
The need to give our children tools for the future in the hope that it will be fantastic is a consequence of the will to turn them into geniuses, even if they have to pay a high price, leading many parents to overestimulate them from the beginning. from an early age, to complete your activity days or to set goals relentlessly.
Philosophers such as Epicurus, Heidegger and Byung-Chul have devoted books and analysis to the possible consequences of the bad reputation of boredom in our society. Today, psychology and philosophy emphasize the importance of this feeling for the development of creativity and problem solving.
Wanting geniuses can also impatient us with the first difficulties, or the less positive first results of our children. We forget that educating our children is a long-term process, that learning involves trial and error, as well as a lot of patience. Moreover, we must not forget that self-esteem plays a key role in school outcomes.
A book by Colin Rose and J. Nicholl describes a study that found that 82% of children who start school are very confident in their learning abilities. This percentage drops to 18% at age 16, and even more before entering college.
“Educating our children involves understanding that this is a long-term process, and that patience is critical. “
In addition, excessive demand for children directly affects their self-esteem, they feel they cannot meet all of our expectations, and this continues throughout the growth process into adulthood, causing problems in the future when they can become unmotivated adults.
“Getting bored at the right time is a sign of intelligence. “-Clifton Fadiman-
When we put education at the center of our family life, the message we send to our children is not very good, they come to believe that we see them with this approach, they do not believe that we take them as people and that we take into account their personal or emotional life. Do the questions we ask at dinner revolve around school during the day?The notes? Classes The rest of the circumstances don’t seem to be important and that’s a danger.
You can go so far as not to ask the children or at home for help, or to give other responsibilities, because you understand that their only responsibility is to study. We have focused everything on this issue but neglected other areas, such as relationship, skills. responsibility, your desires and dreams.
“Focusing on educating our children only in study is a mistake that involves leaving aside other important areas, such as promoting responsibility. “
Now comes the subject of notes. We generally reward high scores and punish low scores, on the one hand we omit internal and external factors that influence our concentration, performance and attention, on the other hand, when we constantly provide an external reinforcement, internal motivation ends up being lost.
As Joan Domenech, a teacher at a school in Barcelona, Spain, said: “The best incentive is to discover new things and develop their interest; if the child needs a material stimulus, does something not work?”Even Marx draws our attention to the dangers of materialism, doing everything we can to achieve a goal and transform our children into small capitalists.
The best thing we can do is reward your good results with phrases like “Am I very proud of you?”Or “you must be very proud of your efforts and results. “On the other hand, when the notes were not very good, the ideal is to try to analyze what happened to them.
For example, if your child finds it difficult to concentrate, if he or she is not organized, or if he or she does not understand his or her homework, he or she may need additional reinforcement, such as private lessons. In this case, the message should be “What can I do?do to help you perform better?”
“The path of teaching through theories is long, brief and effective through examples. “- Seneca-
Also in this aspect of education many parents study and do homework with their children, this action can have many consequences, present and future, depending on how we do it we can become addicted and make children unable to cope with a school assignment. without our help.
Also, not very effective course support can lead to conflicts and difficulties because parents, although they are key educators, do not always have the best tools to help in all areas.
We must let them make mistakes and let the teachers be responsible for correcting them. The lesson can be a great way to promote self-reliance. As Piaget said, autonomy is the ability to govern oneself and make their own decisions.
“Learning without thinking is an unnecessary effort; think unlearned, dangerous?. – Confucius-
Another aspect, not least, is that many parents constantly question the school line, criticize the number of tasks, their content, the jobs they submit, etc. It is assumed that when we choose a school we agree with its ideology, and if we criticize it, we send a confusing message and make one of the biggest mistakes in educating our children.
It is true that teachers often send a lot of homework and this can leave our children stunned, but it depends on each teaching method, the characteristics of children, among others, it is important to accept, because we choose this school and, in this way, we will set a good example for our children. We are responsible, after a certain age, for taking the initiative to solve academic difficulties.
“I’m not a teacher, I’m just a travel companion to ask for directions. “- George Bernard Shaw-
There are no recipes to help, but there is a horizon that can guide us, for example, a Canadian plan called the 24-hour movement recommends between 9 and 11 hours of sleep per day, at least one hour of daily exercise and fewer hours of exercise. free time in front of the screens.
This movement, in turn, also concludes: “We found that more than two hours of playful recreation with screens are associated with worse cognitive development in children. “Therefore, leisure hours must be dedicated to different games, without screen and chosen by them.
When it comes to studies, it is important that we be flexible, patient, listen to our children and put them in their place, and also do not focus exclusively on studies and neglect other aspects of their lives. Can’t we damage our relationship by becoming teachers or task supervisors.
We have to let them fail. Let them get bored. Having bad grades is normal and they can always learn from their mistakes, being self-sufficient is important because it strengthens and provides benchmarks for the future, and is the best education we can provide.