Turning Your Child’s
Envious Attitude to the Positive Side
The Attitude Detection
When Angel was two or three years
old I noticed that she frowned (means she never liked it) whenever
I praised somebody else aside from her, even the children performing on tv
shows, whew! I knew that it may not come out from envy but maybe
plain jealousy knowing her age.
I began telling her in a calm manner that she need not feel like that
because she, her friend or that girl on tv can ALL BE beautiful, smart or witty at the same time – there is no
need to choose or knock the other out. There is no competition at all.
Side Story:
I even told her the run-of-the-mill story of the child who
had lost his mother and went looking for her telling everyone that his mother
is fairest – the child of course has his own perception of beauty – the King
has summoned the prettiest in his territory BUT still the ‘mother’ the child is looking for is not one of them. It so
happened that the child’s mother bears ordinary facial features with a huge,
dark and embossed birthmark on her face…
Knowing
the Root Cause
Even if everybody is asked on beauty’s definition –
each person will sure to yield different answers or perception on its real
sense. Physical attribute is not always
the yardstick to define beauty and it is also true with other things. And it helps
to let your child be aware of it so that hearing bad comments could not shatter
him this is related to the main topic because envy and jealousy springs out from insecurity, feeling inferior or sometimes feeling useless.
And most especially, every mother has her
child as the ‘MOST of all’ that is ‘for me she is the prettiest, the smartest
and the most talented- and all the other parents have the same opinion of their
child though not verbally admitting it.
This sometimes bring the child at a lost on his self-perception.
‘You are pretty although
she is prettier BUT …’
It will not hurt to APPRECIATE others too...and teaching
the value of acceptance to a child
is far WORTH it than we thought.
Try to find something good in her
that is worth praising. Never flatter your child – give her compliment. It pays
to be honest.
At first, when I heard my Angel
talking that way and comparing herself to others – I always tell her the other
child deserves it. If I think she feels insecure of herself, I just tried to
figure-out what became of her to rank second or not the finest. To show her what she needs to improve or
where she had shortcomings…again not to make her feel sorry about it but to let
her know in a way that the other child might have done her part to succeed over
her and the game does not always belongs to her.
WARNING on Negatively Boosting Child’s
Self-Confidence
It helps to boost their self-confidence but not to the point that will
make them TOO PROUD of themselves and assuming that nobody can beat them –
this is evident at times that a child wins in a competition etc. We must
instill in them the value of acknowledging God’s help, hard work and diligence
in achieving that goal. That winning is not the goal, what is important is not losing
helplessly – giving all efforts to achieve the goal.
Every competition is a moment to
learn from, an experience to treasure – in fact it may also be something to be
proud of, representing the school – counting the number of students from where the
child was chosen, is it not a thing to be happy about?! This way the child will
never have a feeling that whenever he loses a medal for somebody else,
it is a doom’s day for him nor he
became a storyteller creating stories of ‘cheating’ if in reality
there is NONE. If there is, the good thing is they never did the cheating – it is
a happier thing to celebrate for BUT not to chatter about.
Why she have it and I don’t?
When it comes to material things that your child gets
insecure for, or felt sad that she does not have – we can make them aware of
our REAL economic status. Pretending to be something we are not, could become a
chain of lies and hardship. That if we
buy this or that, we can not buy what we REALLY
NEED. That those things are just WANTS.
Let them know these things:
-They can have them later in life
especially if they will study harder and finish schooling.
-They can reward themselves later
when they start earning and that is
the reason WHY we are sending them to school.
-But if chances are good (that we
have extra money), we can also buy them those things that we can not promise to
give them today.
Children can be told not to avoid
those who have everything they wished for, instead remain friends with them or
make what others have as inspirations
to concentrate on their studies and BE the BEST of what THEY CAN BE in the
future. A Dream’s only limitation is the dreamer’s actions – a coined quotation
by yours truly based on experience.
Envy can be CONSTRUCTIVE, if it
will make you strive to achieve more
and DESTRUCTIVE if that envy will push
you to pull others down- it does not only destroy the person envied but also
the person himself in the long run. Doing piles of unjust deeds just to
prove his worth in the wrong way is making him the worst he can be.
Teaching a child to mind his own
stuff not be pessimistically bothered with others’ gains can give him
contentment and SECURITY that will soon make him feel happy for others’
achievements and gains – it will come out naturally.
Have a great day everyone. Thanks
for reading.
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