WHY ACCEPTANCE MATTERS

Dear parents/future parents…

This is for you…

" ACCEPTANCE"

I have never come across a similar word or another word that I feel is very important in the lives of people than this. We all live for the acceptance and the recognition this world could give us to promote living. This is what just psychologists from all times wanted to say through the titles of reinforcements and positive strokes.

Imagine you dressing up in your favorite attire and your husband forgets to notice how elegantly it matches you or after eating the evening snack you prepared for your children which you made after watching YouTube videos were relentlessly criticized for its extra spiciness. ?Or suppose, after a tired day at work, if you are being treated badly by your wife or even after spending all your middle hood for children and listening to their worry that the father never showed love to them. How you are ready to taste the bitterness of these under-recognitions?

Similar way, there are endless possibilities for the examples your children might have for the times they were denied the acceptance they deserved in life, moreover which explicitly they wanted from you. A case of a young lady who was preparing for a highly competitive exam showed up for her panic attacks and depressive episodes in the psychiatric hospital. She was going through a very difficult phase of her life in which she lost her interest and motivation to study, but needed to pass the examination.

As an elder daughter of her family, she was cared for and loved abundantly by her parents. She showed excellence in academics that attracted people towards her and she received acceptance from everywhere. The support her parents gave her was the main reason for all her achievements, both in academics and non-curricular activities. Day by day, for their acceptance and love, she spends all her time making her parents proud of her.

Years later, when her younger sister started her preschool, she heard them saying to the younger child that she should be like her sister. This kind of admiration not only strengthened her academic performance but also her level of self-esteem and worth. But the cruelty awaited her through the bunch of failures in the competitive exam she desired for her entire life. It was not the failures that changed her life, instead, it was the acceptance she was denied by others that made her life miserable.

The ones who extended their hands for her successes in life couldn’t offer even a small finger, instead pointed out the consecutive failures she faced in life. Surprisingly, the same acceptance and recognition which carved out the excellent student and artist inside her acted as the stone that was strong enough to break her glass hard self-worth.

Just another story is, recently I had a conversation with a young child of 10 years whom themselves not consider as a child anymore. She was talking to me just as an equivalent adult about the souls and the possession of demons, books of the Ruskin bond, God as a delusion, and many more things which even I feel difficult to interpret. I was really astonished by her knowledge which is beyond a child that even not yet reached adolescence. But I also recognized the high level of grandiosity the child possesses which certainly results in her elevated self-esteem. But then she was telling proudly about her first rank in class. I couldn’t help in showing a sudden change in my smile which just happened because the interchannel discrepancy exists, not out of jealousy, but listening to her narration that how she secured it.

It is like When the final results came, she was marked as the second rank in her class in which she lost the first rank for accurately 0.1 %. But then her parents fought with the teachers to make their daughter the topper of the class. Do you sense any irony as I do?

Recognition is not only relevant when someone engages in a desired behavior. It is equally important to accept someone when they face challenges in life. This acceptance and recognition have a lot to do with the perception of feeling as a failure.

Dear parents/ future parents… this is for you…shower your children with the strokes they deserve at the right times. Don’t fail yourself by not accepting your children as themselves, abandoning them in their tough times like strangers in life. Teach them failures are part of life and you would still embrace them with love. Recognize their efforts, and the other significant factors that are affecting them along with their personal factors. Clap on their success, but also hold them when they need you.