Some parents commit serious parenting mistakes that can be difficult, if not impossible, to correct in the future. These mistakes are not limited to physical punishment and verbal abuse but extend to other actions that can leave a lasting, detrimental impact on the children's psychology, behavior, and thinking, potentially harming their relationships with their parents and siblings.
To prevent parents from continuing these mistakes or similar ones and from damaging their relationships with their children, we will discuss additional errors and their negative effects on the children:
- Neglecting a Child's Problems Until They Become Unresolvable
Children encounter challenges and problems at various stages of their development. Sometimes, parents underestimate or completely ignore the issues their children face, causing these problems to worsen over the years and become ingrained in the child's personality and behavior.
Common problematic behaviors include bad manners, excessive pampering, stubbornness, arguing, swearing, and hitting other children. A significant mistake, often made by mothers, is overprotecting and defending the child, shielding them from the consequences of their actions. Instead of allowing the child to take responsibility for their decisions and learn from their mistakes, the mother steps in to apologize on their behalf, which prevents the child from understanding their errors and the importance of not repeating them.
As a result, the child grows up relying on others to defend and apologize for them, eventually learning to blame others instead of facing and acknowledging their mistakes. Therefore, parents need to address any improper behavior in their child and monitor it regularly. They should decide how to handle and correct these behaviors while the child is still young, before they become deep-rooted habits that are hard to change.
- Favoritism Among Children
One of the gravest mistakes parents can make is showing favoritism among their children. Even if this favoritism manifests as treating one child exceptionally well while merely ignoring the other, this behavior is still profoundly unjust. The child who receives poor treatment or is ignored will not only develop resentment towards the preferential parent but also towards the favored sibling.
Thus, parental favoritism harms not only the parent-child relationship but also the sibling relationship, fostering feelings of animosity, resentment, and jealousy that may persist long after the parents have passed away and the siblings have gone their separate ways.
Parents must recognize their mistakes in parenting, acknowledge them, and strive to apologize and correct them as much as possible.
- Excessive Strictness and Harshness
Many parents confuse the need for firmness in certain situations with a constant state of strictness, leading to harshness that creates barriers between them and their children. Instead of being the safe haven their children turn to in times of trouble, the parent becomes the problem the children want to avoid. This dynamic often leads to children hiding aspects of their lives from their parents and ceasing to seek their advice or include them in decision-making.
Parents must understand that while firmness is necessary at certain stages and in specific situations, compassion, empathy, respect, and open communication should be the foundation of the lifelong parent-child relationship. As one child remarked years after being beaten by his father, he no longer remembered the reason for the beating but would never forget that his father had struck him. The same applies to other harsh and severe interactions; the child may forget the cause but will always remember the harsh treatment.
The most significant consequences of harshness include damaged relationships between the child and the parent and a sense of isolation experienced by the children despite their parents being alive, due to the lack of a supportive and affectionate relationship, that drive children to seek their parent’s advice or help.
- Unrealistic Expectations and Intrusive Interference
Some parents struggle to distinguish between their desire for their children to succeed and expecting perfection from them. These parents often obsess over academic performance, turning it into a major issue if the child does not excel or achieve certain grades. This obsession extends to choosing study fields, universities, and career paths, with some parents forcibly imposing their preferences on their children. If the children choose differently, the parents express disappointment and view it as a deviation from the path to success.
Parents should differentiate between their duty to offer advice and opinions and imposing their views on their children, condemning them for making independent life choices that only concern them, even if it’s not harmful or enrages Allah the Almighty.
The most severe consequence of this behavior is the resentment that may develop in the child if forced into a disliked field of study, resulting in a lifelong sense of unfulfilled dreams and aspirations that their parents deprived them of. The constant demand for excellence can also lead to psychological issues, self-loathing, and a lack of self-satisfaction due to continuous parental criticism and dissatisfaction, making parents love conditioned to their child’s success, which is one of the worst punishments any parent can subject their child to.
These are serious parenting mistakes that harm the parents themselves first and foremost. Therefore, parents should prioritize learning proper parenting principles. When faced with any incorrect or unhealthy behavior from their child, they must understand its causes and how to help the child overcome it. Challenges and issues vary depending on the child's gender and age, and parents must take this into account. Above all, parents should seek Allah's guidance, pray for His assistance, and rely on Him in all matters.
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