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Monday, November 3, 2008

Discipline

I am not a main stream parent. I do not believe in spanking, hitting, yelling, etc to get your children to mind. Now, just because I do not believe in it doesn't mean that it doesn't happen sometimes. Yes, sometimes I loose my temper, and I do end up yelling at them, but I really try to prevent it.

I think what bothers me the most is hearing "You are a bad boy" or "You are bad". I know that sometimes it just happens to slip out to some people, but they don't realize how detrimental those words can be to a young child's self esteem.

Apparently they have never heard of self fulfilling prophecy. Self fulfilling prophecy is when a child is told something so often in his/her life that they make it come true. For example: let's say Tom is told repeatedly how horrible he is, how dumb he is, and how he'll never amount to anything. Because Tom has heard this his entire life, he'll make it come true; not because he isn't good enough, but because he doesn't think he'll ever be any different.

I think a child who hears how he/she is bad is just setting them up for failure and a low self esteem. The job as parents and caregivers is to help provide a stable, positive home environment; to help children grow emotionally and physically so they are good adults. I think that sometimes people forget that children are equals, not lesser people. Children deserve the same amount of respect as any other person in the world. To talk down to a child is teaching him/her to talk down to everyone they come in contact with as they grow. To talk down to a child is setting him/her up for a horribly low self esteem and problems for the rest of their lives.

Some people who read this may think I'm off my rocker, but this is how I think. This is how I parent. My children are equals to me. Yes I am Mommy, and I make the rules, and they should listen to me, BUT I consider them just as human as me with the same rights.

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