SHOULD CHILDREN HAVE EVERYTHING?

Every human wants to give their children everything they can and dream of all the possible successes for them. We want them to do extremely well in studies, play sports, do dance, learn music, singing, be happy, have fun, enjoy all of life’s experiences and love every bit of growing up.

Basically, we want to create a Perfect childhood!

To do this we willfully sacrifice. Once we have kids, we start planning their future. We save for them instead of spending on ourselves. We restrict our lives, but we go all out for our children. Parents take a second seat and let go of their dream so that they make their kid’s dream come true.

But should we give them everything? I think otherwise!

While we work to give a lot to our children, but they should not get everything- every toy, every wish, every opportunity, every experience. Because they need to learn some valuable life lessons:

1.????Everyone has different priorities, respect them

A family/ person works according to their values and their priorities are different. Children should learn from an early age not to judge others. In a class not every child can celebrate their birthdays same way- one gives expensive return gifts, other one gives a fancy party, another one give only candies. But children should not be judging or mocking their classmates for that. Nor they should hate their parents for not doing whatever others are doing. This year it might be a simple party as your house requires maintenance and a child should understand that.

For one family spending money on travel seems wise while other one chooses to spend money on materialistic things. Both ideologies must be respected.

A child should learn his/her family’s priorities and respect them.

?2.????Life is good even if you don’t get everything you desire

Life is a mixed bag of happiness and disappointments, and kids should learn to deal with disappointments, failures, and hard times. And we should not rescue them at every chance we get.

There are times when we should rescue them from some hurts but then there are also times when we should let them deal with such situations themselves. They should learn to get up, dust off and move on. Use it to be motivated in life. And if they don’t learn this skill, they are going to feel vulnerable.

As parents our duty is to let our children gain that inner strength and believe that every challenge can bring them meaningful happiness.

3.????Not everything is about you.

Our children are everything to us, they are center of our attention, our lives. And its natural they feel highly important. But when they step out in the world nobody is going to make them feel loved, important or give special treatment.

We should assist our children in realizing their value. How they can be important and valuable to others outside the family. They should know that nobody has a job to make them happy and its wrong even to expect that. Instead, they should learn how they can be useful to others.

4.????Sometimes you must sacrifice for the greater good

Our children have a habit of seeing us sacrifice for them since beginning. They assume this is the only way. But they should also learn the other way around- learning to sacrifice if it’s for the good.

We never want children to sacrifice for us and teach them this same thing. Further into the future once we are old, we start complaining about how our kids are thankless. Its not our children’s fault, its ours. Because we never asked them to sacrifice anything. Whatever they asked you provided.

Your kid wants his/her 5th PlayStation but you are thinking of buying a refrigerator for the house, then your kid should understand this and sacrifice his want!

Everyone is required to make sacrifice in life, the earlier children learn the better. Else they will be bitter on every occasion when their wishes are turned down.

?Remember when our children were just babies, we had let them walk, fall, let them eat on their own even if there was a huge mess; we did all these things so that our children are independent. We should not give them everything on platter and spoil them and rob of what they can become in future.

Our children do not need everything, and they will thank you for this.

If a bird gives everything to her nestlings, then they would never learn to fly.

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