As a child, like many of us are regardless of age, it’s painful to be under the microscopic eye of parents. It’s great to have loving and supportive parents, but it’s also quite a burden having them be nit-picky about all the things you are not striving to achieve according to them– sadly from the perspective of their own eyes.
It’s funny how they seem to be seeking perfection in you when you are already perfect.
One of your biggest critics in life will be your own parents based on a particular element called “presence.” Presence is what exists continuously “in their eyes” as you are raised and reared by them from the onset of your birth and continuing until life passes by.
Many parents have terrible habits in that they will see and view children according to what they observe without context. Parents also have a funny storage system of keeping track of children’s actions, speech and behavior patterns regardless of time.
This storage of patterns related to you is what is going to get you in trouble time and time again, and be the reason behind disagreements you have with your parents. This will be case even if you are working hard to change your own behavior patterns such as fighting laziness, timeliness, or obesity.
What is of most relevance about good change is that this happens outside of the window of others – even your parents. Because of the storage of patterns, parents will always be able to look up the file of some action that you took that was negative in the past, even though you have corrected it, and they will love bringing it to light whenever they want.
Not sure why they do this but “concern about you” seems to be on the tip of their tongue on many occasions.
The weight of your marketability is always higher in the presence of parents for some reason. Yet what is essential in your life, are those things that even your parent’s can’t see.
It’s been said that the best actions toward others should be done in secret. There is no need to advertise how good you are to someone. We should be good for the sake of being good. Just act good and no need to put up the billboard of your action.
But what happens these days is that we need to provide validation to even our parents of our good actions – which is something that we shouldn’t have to advertise but must as they are in most situations clinging on to negative actions that they have stored about us in their memory.
The most important and relevant actions that the child is taking toward self-improvement is actually on the blind-side of the parents. They are only seeing you for who you are in their presence – but presence is not indicative of what you are really doing when you are not “in sight” of them.
What this means is that if you are sitting on a couch that could be interpreted that you are lazy when you are actually active on your soccer team. Or if you are eating junk food this means that they conclude you eat the wrong kinds of foods all the time when in reality you are eating salads several times a week. Or if you act in moods of frustration, they assume you are stressed out and moody all the time when in reality you are just occasionally hit with the usual humdrum of life.
The words interpreted, concluded and assumed are words that misrepresent the true real self. There are some hidden truths to these behavior patterns that must not be overlooked – and the truth is that we will always be blind to it.
Some of the kids who you think are lazy will be the next genius. Those who you think are complacent will start the next biggest company. Those who are eating junk food may become the next fitness superstar.
Why is this the case? Because when it comes to children, past actions are not necessarily indicative of future outcomes – which is one of the biggest assumptions parents make.
This is sadly what a lot of parents don’t see – that change in you will happen outside of their presence. The reality is that this change that you see in yourself will never be seen by others.
Change is personal. Change is secret. Change is for your good. Change has nothing to do with others – even your parents. It’s all about you.
Here are some ideas for parents that can hopefully control these behavior patterns:
- Don’t expect past behavior of children to be an indication of present or future behavior; children are not like business partners. There is no freedom to change them. You need to accept them for the way that they have been brought into this world.
- Remember that your child’s change will happen outside of your presence. Kids are not going to change because of you – they will change based on the environment they are in – when they are out with their friends, in college, or living away. Change is inevitable when they become adults.
- Remember to keep actions of relevance, for discussion, to those in the present. Pointing to the past is irrelevant. Talk about actions taking place now, not even a few weeks back. While it’s important for history not to repeat itself, it’s a bit mundane to look backwards when you are looking right in “front” of your child.
- It’s never about what you want – it’s about what your child wants. The child is a human with desires, goals, and behavior patterns that can’t be controlled, but may be guided. It’s up to the child at the end to understand what is best for them.
- You don’t own your children or any of their actions – children are born through you. Ownership should take the form of friendship and open dialogue. Any time formality is introduced could be a struggle for both parties to be on the same page leading to many future disagreements. Learn to detach yourself from control and you will have more control in the relationship.