Branding or labelling your children
1. Does your child walk around with a permanent frown on his face or is he forever voicing an annoyed tone even on the best of days?
2. Is there a constant rage of emotions, whether he is casually talking about school or his younger sibling or his favorite football team?
3. Does your child leave his room messy all the time?
So how do you really deal with your children such unruly behaviors? How do you really start a conversation around it?
Those menacing looks by a parent, enraged screams, the sarcastic insults and disapproving criticisms can lead to serious outbursts and repercussions in the long run.
If you are unable to find answers to these issues, it is surely bound to cause graver problems such as non-acceptance and withdrawal.
Firstly, no matter what, we have to ensure that our children are always loved unconditionally irrespective of how they choose to showcase their emotions / behavior. Disapprove your child’s behavior, not your child!! While communicating to your child about his/her aggressive behavior, just refer to the conduct, the rage of emotions displayed, the inappropriateness of the behavior. Do not label or brand your child with it.
What you tell your children matter a lot!
Refrain from saying to your child. “You are so stubborn; you are so unorganized or you have been so messy!”. If you start branding or labelling your child as the above, they will start believing themselves to be the same, they will grow up with this strong belief of who they are labelled as!
Instead say, “The way you were dealing with your friend was full of stubbornness, your attitude of being messy, your un-organized habits”. Here you have not branded the child, but labelled the behavior of the child. So, before you start a conversation with your children regarding their inappropriate behaviors, always brand or label your child’s behavior. It is much easier for the child to change his/her behavior rather than change himself/herself itself!! In the 2nd case the child will not only detest a lot and shall never agree to change the whole self, but in the long run grow up to believe that he/she is what his parents labelled them as.
