The best thing you can do for your kids is to accept them for who they are. Not only accept, but love and celebrate them as they are, not for who you want them to be. Don't criticize them for their dreams or for their imperfections. And to teach them to accept, love, and celebrate themselves and others as they are, imperfections and all.
Children who are criticized constantly, who think they are not good enough, or cannot gain their parents approval grow up to be hard on themselves and others. They grow up thinking "I'm not good enough", "I have to be perfect", " I have to try harder to better myself in every way". They never have enough. They look outside themselves for happiness because they don't have it inside. Or they look for approval from others.
Now I'm not saying to go to the extreme and faughn over your kids and act as if everything they do is great. There needs to be a balance. There needs to be accountability. There need to be boundaries and limits. Kids need to know where the limits are and have some structure in their life. But give them feedback on how to improve and know when good enough is. They need to know everyone including themselves and their parents are not perfect. We will all make mistakes. Learn from them and move on. And that's what makes life interesting.
It's sad to see when a client of mine is on the treatment table wondering what was wrong with them, what terrible thing did they do to not be praised and approved of by their parents. That's not even mentioning abuse or neglect that many kids have experienced. Hopefully this generation of kids has learned better.
Action
Love, love, love your kids or the kids in your life and let them know they are great just the way they are, faults and all. Kids especially are going to make mistakes and not always behave how adults want them to, it's part of being a kid. Even adults make mistakes. Why would we ever fault for kids for it. Love and enjoy!
