How to help your pushover kid
Photo: Radius Images/Getty Images
Congratulations, Mom and Dad. You?ve raised a well-behaved, unfailingly polite and, by all accounts, exceedingly kind child ? exactly as you hoped. Except that, while everyone is raving about how sweet and obedient your kid is, you?re secretly worried that he?s deferring too much to other children, avoids confrontation and doesn?t know how to stick up for himself. Is it possible that your child is too nice ? and that, perhaps, you are, too" Passive kids, and their mild-mannered folks, sometimes need to learn to push back.
I can relate. People pleaser, diplomat, pushover? through the years, I?ve been all of these. As the child of an alcoholic father, I learned early that being ?easygoing? made people more agreeable, less angry and argumentative. I also learned that treating others the way you want to be treated really does work. So my husband and I have tried to raise our kids, Rowan, 10, and Margaret, 8, to be thoughtful, polite and considerate of others, even if it means putting their own needs last. But we sometimes wonder whether we?re setting them up to be dissatisfied and overly deferential as adults. Nancy Yan,* a Toronto mother, has been asking herself the same questions lately. Recently, a bunch of classmates called her generally quiet 11-year-old daughter, Charlotte, ?stupid.? Charlotte later told her mom about the schoolyard incident, and reported that she chose to say nothing in response, and simply changed the subject. Yan ...
-------------------------------- |
|
COMPETITION: Win a 5-star Family Holiday in Limassol, Cyprus
27-04-2024 08:05 - (
moms )