Buzz
Never ask a child a question just to please us, or expect an interesting answer.
Witnessing many mothers ask their children: “Do you love mom more or dad more?”, journalist Truong Anh Ngoc has made some very noteworthy insights into communication between grandparents, parents, and children in the family.
Sitting at a café, I saw a mother walking with her child, asking as they walked: “Do you love mom more or dad more?”. The child, probably around 4 years old, didn't know how to respond.
Honestly, I never ask my child such questions, nor do I ever ask other children or grandchildren such questions.
That phrase is heard so often from adults to children, sometimes just a casual remark with no ill intent, but in my opinion, it's truly not good, should not be asked, because we shouldn't force a child to choose, even if it's just a playful choice.
We shouldn't inadvertently force a child who hasn't grasped much about society and the complex relationships within it to face a choice and comparison about who's better, dad or mom, grandpa or grandma, or even broader, many other things, like why their house has more toys while theirs doesn't.
The child finds it hard to answer because if it answers loving mom when it actually loves dad or loves both, it will only make the mother happy.
Never ask a child a question just to please ourselves, or wait for an answer that sounds interesting, while in reality, the child may have to lie from a very young age.
Dishonesty and striving to live up to others' expectations have been ingrained from a young age, sometimes starting from questions like “Do you love mom or dad more?”.
Never turn children into such individuals.
I often encounter fathers, mothers, or grandparents of a child who often say, “Be careful, the ground hurts” when their child/grandchild falls on the pavement or playground and cries.
When a child falls, it's either because they're walking or running too fast, or because they're still unsteady on their feet, and falling is natural, not because the ground makes them fall.
Blaming the ground for “hurting” to stop “it” from crying is actually a way of inadvertently shifting responsibility to the objective rather than acknowledging one's own fault.
As children grow up, they will also understand that sometimes they fall not because someone else made them fall, but because they made a mistake and fell themselves.
But by then, they may have paid a heavy price for their own personal responsibility, because from a young age, they were not taught and learned basic life skills.
A remark to a child may seem harmless to adults and sometimes adults say it just as a habit, but it could potentially harm them in the future, unbeknownst to the adults…
Reading more articles will help you become a good parent in the category: Parenting.
Posted by: Huyen Ba
Keywords: Never ask whether the child loves mom more or dad more?
