Having limiting beliefs is normal. But if you as a parent have limiting beliefs yourself, you are surely passing them on to your kids without being aware of it. As much as you try to teach them what’s right, they will stick to the beliefs they learn from you.
Many parents hold beliefs that undermine their parenting and the behaviour of their kids. For most, these limiting beliefs go unnoticed. They wonder why their kid is so unruly; no matter what approach to discipline they take. This only strengthens their limiting beliefs, meaning that the more perplexed, stressed, anxious and angry about their discipline failings they get, the more the kid is going to misbehave. To see the sort of change they want to see, they must change the way they think, before they can begin to change the way their kid behaves.
6. My kids need to ask permission for everything
Asking for permission is something most of us want our kids to do before they proceed with something that they’ve never done before.
But having them ask permission for everything and waiting for us to tell them it’s O.K. can lead to a limiting belief that they can’t go after things they want in life without getting permission first.
Many of us grew up needing to ask permission for a lot of things. Has that led us to not be “go getters?” To just let life take us where it will? Have we subconsciously been waiting for “permission” from someone else to chase our dreams?
Of course we can’t let our children just do whatever they want. But we can give them the leeway to not to have to ask for permissions to do everything. We can encourage them to go for what they want without anyone’s permission.
7. Failure is bad
This is key to having a growth mindset. We need to encourage them to try more things so that they fail a lot and learn a lot. It might sound counter-intuitive at first but for our kids to be successful they have to fail along the way. If you encourage them to welcome failure as a learning process, they will not be afraid to try new things in the future and be accepting of failure as a normal thing. If you punish them or rebuke them for failure, they will fear it. Their fear of failure will be bigger than the lure of the reward of the goal they are trying to achieve.
8. If you apologize, you lose credibility
This is too common a problem we parents have. As the decision makers in the household, we feel that we are above saying sorry or apologising for anything to our kids. Take a moment and think about where you might have got this belief from.
When we neglect to apologise, we teach our children to grow up with an attitude. We are saying, if you have power, you don’t need to apologise for any wrong you might have done. When we apologise for our mistakes, we set the right precedent and teach our kids to apologise when they are wrong.
9. If you are good parents, your kids will be well-behaved
This is another common belief all parents have. If our kids misbehave in front of others we feel others might be judging us as bad parents and it reflects poorly on our parenting style. In the end if our kids start misbehaving, we start judging ourselves and go on a negative spiral. This has a detrimental effect on us and ultimately affects our parenting as well. Kids are their own individuals who will sometimes act out and misbehave and that does not reflect on you as a parent. All you can do is continue to support them and understand the root cause of their misbehaviour.
10. My child just does not listen to me
How many times we have told this about our kids in front of our friends or family? You might feel your child does not listen to you at all and pays no heed to what you say or do. However, the truth is your child is looking at you carefully and observing everything.
It is what you are teaching your child that matter the most but how you are teaching it. You might be teaching your child the best values in the world and it won’t matter if you do not teach it to them in the right way. What I have seen work best is to show them how it is done, rather than tell them. Whatever behaviour you want them to display, you need to model it for them. They will learn by watching you and emulate that behaviour.
PS : Many parents hold limiting beliefs that undermine their parenting and the behavior of their kids. For most, these limiting beliefs go unnoticed. They wonder why their kid is so unruly; no matter what approach to discipline they take. To see the sort of change they want to see, they must change the way they think, before they can begin to change the way their kid behaves.
About The Author
A Gen-Z parent, study skill and Habit coach for students and author of “Toppers’ study hacks”, “Success blueprint for competitive exams” and “How to raise a topper”, Avinash Agarwal has been working in the area of mentoring for over 15 years. Interviews with hundreds of toppers who have cracked different competitive exams have led him to understand the topper mindset. He believes that every child can be a topper and through his sessions aims to teach powerful study strategies and techniques to students so that they can pursue their dreams.
My Books
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