We’re afraid of making mistakes while raising our kids. Yes, it’s possible. Not every mistake we make has far-reaching consequences. Parents should not be too hard on themselves. We all make mistakes. The biggest mistakes parents make are:
- mistreatment and abuse
- humiliation
- expose
- Strong control and exercise of power
- disinterest and neglect
- love withdrawal
- make accusations
- Excessive care
Table of Contents
Psychology of gross educational mistakes
It is likely that we all make parenting mistakes to some degree or another. But if a mistake in upbringing happens over a long period of time, it will most likely have harmful consequences for our children. Rarely do we see a single event that harms our children.
Even though there are still individual traumatic experiences that can shape our children so strongly that they can suffer long-term consequences. Accidents, disasters, death, illness, war, and loss can be such traumatic events. However, these are not educational mistakes, but rather crises that people and children experience.
Children need the ability to be resilient to cope with crises and parenting mistakes. A certain defensive response. Children who have a good parent-child relationship, who are confident, and who can cope well with stress, are able to build resilience.
I have written more about resilience and how you can best promote it in your child here.
Quote: Many people think that once they admit a mistake, they don’t have to put it down.Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
What are gross parenting errors?
As I have already mentioned, not every parenting mistake we make is a blunder. Sometimes small mistakes can affect our kids. The most important factor is the duration and intensity of the storm. Mistakes that people make occasionally are less traumatic than the mistakes that parents make over and over again.
Of course, it also depends on the child’s circumstances. Family and other factors affect how well children can deal with mistakes made by their parents. Attachment to the parents, resilience, family situation, and temperament of the children have a significant influence on this.
So, gross or serious educational mistakes are mainly due to the fact that the mistake affects the children again and again and thus deprives them of optimal development opportunities.
What parents shouldn’t do? 8 signs of bad parenting
Mistreatment and abuse
Physical and psychological abuse can have a devastating impact on almost every area of a child’s life. This includes any hits, kicks, shoves, or other forms of physical aggression, as well as any form of psychological aggression, such as hostility, humiliation, or derogatory remarks.
Hurting children leaves scars. It robs children of the love and security they need to grow well and healthy. Abuse always leads to serious consequences and cannot be reversed.
Humiliation
It’s a serious parenting mistake to humiliate a child. To treat someone with shame and contempt is to humiliate them. To inflict damage to his pride, dignity, and honor.
The effects of treating a child this way have disastrous effects on the parent-child relationship and can cause serious harm to the child’s esteem.
Expose
We should all do everything we can to avoid embarrassing our children in front of other people. There are certain things that should remain secrets within the family or between parent and child.
Especially if our children don’t want anyone else to find out, and they are obviously uncomfortable even before us parents, we shouldn’t embarrass them in front of other people.
Strong control and exercise of power
By controlling our children, we deprive them of the opportunity to gain experience and learn from it. However, these are critical requirements for healthy development. The freedom of our children can’t be limited if we want them to gain experience and build up self-confidence.
If you try to control everything, your children won’t get the chance to learn. But more than anything, it undermines their autonomy and freedom. It takes away their ability to think and make decisions for themselves. This creates fear, frustration, stress, and usually aggression.
Disinterest and neglect
We need to show our children that we care about them. This is due to the fact that we are interested in their experiences, their activities, and their stories, as well as the fact that we spend plenty of time together. This demonstrates our love and strengthens our relationship.
The active time we spend with our children is what I mean. If the time you spend together is exclusively spent with media or isolated, it can also be considered neglect. Children need to be close to their parents.
Neglect is one of the reasons. Children don’t desperately need toys, but they do need employment and opportunities for employment. They have the right to have fun and gain experience.
These are the basic needs of our children, and we should meet them.
Love withdrawal
Sometimes, parents punish their children by withholding love. What we get is obedience, but not much more. It is likely to instill a fear of loss in our children.
That’s why they are afraid we’ll leave them or that they will lose us. These fears then influence many areas of our children’s lives. Stress and anxiety also limit children’s attention spans.
Make accusations
Blaming our children can also have serious negative consequences for their development. Children are often the targets of our anger. The stress of everyday life can cause us to blame our children. Even though we should pay attention, we should try not to do something like this.
The strain on the relationship makes our kids feel guilty. Or at least not solely to blame for it. It’s an abuse of our perceived authority as parents. This also has a negative impact on self-esteem and is likely to demotivate our children.
In turn, the feeling of being at the mercy can lead to fear and poor self-esteem. Unfavorable consequences that we should avoid.
Over-caring
Too much care can be a serious educational mistake. The so-called lawnmower parents remove every obstacle from their child’s path. This also prevents children from gaining experience and being able to move freely and independently in our environment.
Children need to learn from both good and bad experiences. It is the only way they can learn. Of course, it is our job as parents to protect our children from real dangers.
But children need to learn how to do things for themselves, and that’s what we must teach them. If we take away their independence, then we take away the chance for our children to have an independent and age-appropriate life.
Can you make up for a mistake in your upbringing?
Yes. We can correct most of the mistakes we made in raising our children. It takes much more effort and time to recover them. If the parent-child relationship is damaged from an early age and if our children don’t trust us, it may be too late to make up for serious mistakes in the upbringing.
Constructive criticism and motivation can change your behavior. So, it’s important to question yourself and your upbringing from time to time, and if necessary, to realign and adapt. The fewer mistakes we make, the better it will be for our children.
At this point, I can recommend the book: Nonviolent Communication by MB Rosenberg. Nonviolent communication helps us to talk to people in a way that they don’t feel attacked. An important skill for us parents.
Be aware
Comparisons with others are often not necessary and can be counterproductive. Everyone has different needs and limitations. We too, as well as our children.
But we can also establish limits without hurting our children.
What does bad parenting do to children?
Particularly, serious mistakes in upbringing have a detrimental effect on the relationship with our children. It robs them of the security they need to learn and grow.
It undermines their trust in us and in themselves. Mistakes in parenting can have a very negative effect on our children’s self-esteem. They are often afraid of new things and challenges and tend to shy away from them. However, these are absolutely essential for learning and development.
Children who are raised by parents who are harsh and controlling can have a lot of problems later in life. They may have trouble making friends, they may not do well in school, they may get into trouble with drugs or alcohol, and they may become depressed.
Parents are the hardest to forgive their children for the mistakes they have instilled in them.Marie von Ebner-Eschenbach
Signs of a disturbed parent-child relationship
It is possible that children who don’t see parents as a safe haven or as a starting point for gaining experience have insecure attachments. But even if children are particularly clingy, they could have an insecure bond with their parents if they continue to cry for a long time when their parents take them to kindergarten or school.
This also happens during normal development. During the developmental stages, these fears and behaviors disappear after the phase. I have summarized more detailed information on the subject of insecure attachment and what signs you should look out for in this article.
Conclusion
All of us make errors. In theory, this is not something to be concerned about. Instead of chasing after an ideal that we may not be able to achieve at all, we should take a critical look at ourselves. Or what isn’t right for us and our children.
Respecting boundaries and those of your children is important. It will be a good start for us and our children if we can implement this.
Further information for you to read that relates to the topic of serious parenting errors:
What is child endangerment?
You can read more about child endangerment from a legal point of view here.
Assessment forms on child welfare endangerment from the child welfare information gateway
