There was a time I visited one of my sisters. She complained about how one of my siblings was not performing well, how his grades were low, how he wasn’t as brilliant as his siblings were, how he wasn’t able to read, comparing him to other kids. I said sister “give him time, he would pick up.
She was sceptical about what I told her and asked me when? I told her just watch him, don’t put pressure on him. Later on, when I visited again I found out that he had improved.
This is one of the mistakes some parents do, putting pressure on their children who are yet performing well, unnecessarily comparing them with their siblings or peers, by constantly reminding them how bad or poor they are. They don’t know how it affects those children psychologically, how it bruises their ego, how it makes them have low self-esteem and inferiority complex.
People grow up with this mentality, they see life as a competition where they should outshine other people, and when they fail to, they get frustrated, which later lead to hatred for the person doing better than them. That’s how envy and jealousy get the best of people, they devise means to thwart the progress of other people so that they can’t do better than them.
The society also contributes to this unnecessary competition by giving preferential treatment to those who have become more successful, treating those who are yet to be successful like trash.
Dear parents, don’t expect your children to be the same, God didn’t create them same. You don’t have to compare them to anybody, don’t expect your children to have the same grades, don’t expect your children to be able to read at the same time. Study your children very well, know what they are good at.
Generally, life is not a competition, everybody has his/her own time. Don’t compare yourself to others because your destinies are not the same, likewise your battles and challenges.
Some make it early, some become successful lately and they overtake those who have made it earlier.
By Bulus Shehu
