Only Me ruchi: Do You Trust Your Kid?

Only Me ruchi: Do You Trust Your Kid?: Do You Trust Your Kid? The answer to my question would you be an instant one from most of you – “of course yes!!” I seriously doub...

Do You Trust Your Kid?

Do You Trust Your Kid?

The answer to my question would you be an instant one from most of you – “of course yes!!”

I seriously doubt that though, for what I am referring to is much larger than just a question that can be answered by just an answer. Think again.

Okay, let’ go back to your childhood. Were you trusted by the grown-ups that mattered? Were your opinions considered valuable? Was a decision ever made trusting your instincts even though you were only a child? How was the reaction of your parents or the significant others when you said you would like to be a scientist who could invent a car that could take you to the moon? What happened when you wore your birthday tiara and said one day I am going to be the miss universe…?

When we talk of trusting our children we are not really talking about just the everyday matters of telling the truth or the little lies that childhood is made of. It’s how much confidence you show in them, their thoughts, their dreams and trust them like you would any grown up if they talked about their dreams or career goals.

The simple thing is confidence breeds confidence and trust breeds trust. This is not only true for our relationships and life in general but is particularly critical when raising kids. They have better senses than maybe 10 fully grown men put together [yeah, yeah, I used “men” intentionally, women of course have much sharper senses anyways  J ] Kids can quickly sense your reaction and that would have a lasting impact on their memory for the rest of their life and would be crucial in shaping their personalities too – so watch out if you are faking it!!

Another simple thing would be to ask yourself, how did you react when the child wears a new dress or gets new shoes or dresses up with effort for a special occasion – do you just say a few good things and move on, do you give a whole lot of speech on how wonderful they look but don’t really mean it entirely…  Do you board the values train and enlighten them that they should really not focus so much on their looks and worry about the real things in life!

I get it, we all say we love our kids and no matter what they wear or do we love them unconditionally. That’s not the point here the point is how you show them that affection and how authentically you do so.

For instance, I know a certain parents who love their kids just as much as any other perfectly loving parents would but at the same time preaching that it absolutely doesn’t matter how you look. You have to focus on your values, your belief system, respect for elders etc. etc… the good stuff in life. As adults you’d be glad that this was the philosophy one grew up with... However, think of this child’s confidence every single morning getting dressed for school, college, work, date, or probably the most important day of his/her life… it’s ruined. He looks in to the mirror and convinces himself I am this average or below average looking person who needs to be good at a zillion other things but should not worry about the way I look…. That’s not true!! The overall package of being confident has to do with everything, the way you look, what you believe, how you present yourself and over all what do you think and believe about your own self!!

It all starts fairly early – Do you listen to the little ones when they are describing their day at the preschool… a crayon fight or boy being too boyish that the little girl couldn’t handle..? This probably is setting ground that when they are teenagers would they like to share their concerns with you or not.

The way you react to their stories is extremely important too. Are you too short with them… or do you let them finish their stories and let them tell you what really happened..?

Think of it this way, when you walk into the office of this awesomely awesome doctor that you’ve got an appointment with a lot of trouble just because you think he/ she is the best of the best. Even though you know this doctor is “THE” one, when you reach the clinic, you would by all means like to tell your story, share your symptoms and some of us the more smart ones like to share with the doctor their own little research and the prognosis & diagnosis as well. What if this doctor after your 10 seconds of talk time tells you exactly what’s wrong with you, writes your prescription and sends you away!!

As much as one would agree that this doc maybe totally right and hitting the bulls eye in treating you – you would be strongly disappointed cause he did not hear you out. He did not let you tell your story your way. This isn’t a surprise; most great doctors I have come across are like this. It’s the experience and knowledge together that somewhere drives them to be a bit arrogant.

Now this is exactly what the awesomely awesome parents do too. We all love our kids way too much to let them through any hard times. We know them too well and can quickly figure out what’s wrong and what they need to make it right!! We want to create short cuts for them, avoid any possible bad experiences for them and in the process what we do is tell them that they are wrong and we are right. In the process we somehow end up giving this doctor like 10 second judgments of their stories and their experiences and impose our thoughts onto them. The result being that the kid would start doubting not only their own thinking and processing capabilities but would also doubt if any of this is worth sharing with the – Oh so learned parent!!

You as a parent will learn to trust, learn to show confidence in your child for them to be able to build these qualities in them to make them their personality. If they trust you on something and share it in total confidence with you, don’t share it with your friend or neighbor just to prove to them how much your kids share with you… If you are in conversation with your kids let them finish it and tell you what they think really happened there rather than jumping the gun and giving them a verdict… if you trust them on smaller things when they are tiny and truly share the joy of the impossible dreams of maybe making a staircase to Mars may be someday they would be able to trust you with more realistic issues in life. That’s when you would get your true chance of being able to tap into your wisdom and experience and share your thoughts with them. That’s when your guidance would truly matter!!

You demonstrate Trust to your kids and they would learn to trust others… You show confidence in them and they would believe in your confidence and live a much stronger, stable, Confident life…!!

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RK