Let Children Be Their Own Role Model! – Don’t Compare Your Child
Neha was frantically trying to teach math to her 12-year-old son. It was his Math exam the next day and he was clueless. He was not getting the basic concepts. Neha was trying her best to explain it to him but in vain. After hours of unproductive effort, Neha got annoyed. She started yelling at Rohit. ” What will you do when you grow up? Don’t you want to become like your cousin? He is brilliant in Math and settled abroad. If you dont work hard enough you will fail.” Unconsciously, Neha had set a goal in Rohit’s mind to compete with his cousin who was miles away. Rohit now worked hard and started following the path which his cousin had chosen. He wanted to be at par because his cousin was now his role model. He did not deviate and drowned himself in books in order to excel and make his mother proud. Neha was wrong. Of course, she got paranoid as she could not set his mind on Mathematics but it clearly didn’t give her a license to compare and demean her son. At a tender age of 12, Rohit started living in an inferiority complex gifted to him by his own mother. Her incognizant statement inundated him in a sea of answers. He forgot to enjoy his childhood and his only purpose was being as good as his role model. Neha could have explained or got help from someone who had a better understanding of the subject. For a petty Math test, she scarred the frail heart of her small child.
Why cannot parents let their children be? Children have the whole world in front of them. Let’s not curb their dreams for our selfish wishes. If Neha has not compared Rohit to his cousin and encouraged him to be himself, there would be nothing stopping him. He would craft his own way to uniqueness and mark his own individuality. In this emulous era, when children are growing up to become much more than doctors and engineers, it’s important to give chances to our children and let them be. For you never know, in haste for success and accomplishment, we end up teaching elephants to fly and birds to swim. Every child is an individual and if we as responsible parents and let them fly and achieve their dreams, they will progress and make us proud.
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