One way in which people destroy their children, is by chipping away their self esteem. I am sure that you have seen people, that take their children from a very early age, and begin telling them that they will never amount to anything in life. They tell their children that they are stupid, and can’t understand anything. This is not correct. We can not continue to give our children these mental beatings for years at a time, and expect that they will turn out productive members of society.
Instead, we need to be giving our children encouraging words. We need to praise them when the do something good, and cause them to feel good about their accomplishments. At the same time work out with them what went wrong when they don’t do so well, and what possible outcomes may have arisen had other paths been taken. This will aide them in their critical thinking skills from a young age. We can try showing them why they are smart, instead of always pointing out the irrational things that they may do. When they do happen to make one of these bad decisions we work through why this way will not bring about positive outcomes. This again will help to build them up intellectually and push them to not travel down that path again.
Again, we can not continue to break our kids down over the years and expect other than broken teens and adults. We have to be more proactive in terms of what we do for our children. This may lead later on, to an opportunity to sit back and see some successful fruits from the years that we spend investing in our children.
May Allah help them and us… Allahuma ameen.
