As parents and professionals, we observe children’s behavior. When behaviors repeat themselves, we often attach a judgment to them. What happens if we do that? Does it affect your child? And if so, what is that effect?
What are judgments?
If you tell your child that he/she is annoying, naughty, mean, annoying, lazy, rude, lazy, bully, busybody and so on, you are, as it were, disapproving of your entire child as a person. You are, you say. Actually, if it is good, you want to disapprove of the behavior. Not the person, but what he does or says. Observing behavior in all its purity is different from passing judgment on that behavior.
Do we do that, judge?
Yes, we do it all the time. It is deeply woven into our system. Not surprising because we grew up with it ourselves. We too heard the many judgments that adults cast upon us; mean, inattentive, disrespectful, slob and so on. If a child is constantly labeled, he or she will start to believe that it is him. I’m mean, annoying, naughty, clumsy, stupid, etc. Why should I change myself? It’s me! If you can feel what it has done to you, it is good to reflect on the fact that you are pressing the repeat button on your child. Strange but true.
Judgments and self-image
A poor self-image arises when a child starts to believe that he or she is the one. Self-image and self-confidence go hand in hand. Through judgment, a child learns to condemn himself and thus ends up in a negative spiral. He experiences himself negatively. Loses faith in one’s own abilities. You can feel this in yourself if you have difficulty with reproaches from others. What are you… It touches you and when you look back at your own upbringing and especially your treatment, you recognize the judgment that was pronounced.
Learning to look at behavior
What do you see, what do you observe? You see a fourteen-year-old child slumped on the couch. A bag of chips on the floor, the coke bottle nearby. That’s what you see through the camera. Your judgment might be that your child is lazy or ill-mannered. Your six-year-old son takes something from his three-year-old sister. That is what you observe and you easily associate the judgment ‘naughty’ with it. A child shouted to his parent: ‘I’m not naughty, I’m Iris’. This child instinctively senses that she is completely disapproved and corrects her parent.
Awareness
Become aware of what you say to your child, to everyone else you meet. Recognize the stickers that you put on and that you use to pin someone down. Look at what you see and hear and identify it from within yourself, your own ‘I’, as not okay. This produces sentences such as: I don’t think it’s okay if you lie on the couch like that, in the example of an adolescent. And: I have a problem with you taking things from your sister. That gives a different meaning and you only disapprove of what you see in terms of behavior.
Building self-confidence
A child with self-confidence knows that his parent disapproves of certain behavior, but experiences himself as valuable; I’m fine the way I am. With self-confidence, life becomes lighter. We know this very well when our own history haunts us and we still have to learn to trust ourselves later in life. So let’s look with an open mind.