Kids today just seem to grow up too quickly, but what we don’t realize is that we may have had a hand in that. After all, many among us are guilty of pushing them hard to achieve certain things beyond anyone’s expectations for children their age, like learning to count and read before they can walk or having self-discipline and becoming self-sufficient.
While these per se are not really bad things, rushing your kids through childhood could have adverse effects, as Dr. Gail Gross writes in an article for the HuffingtonPost.
Stress in children
Dr. Gross says that rushing your kids through childhood will them experience the same kinds of stress that we adults go through. With that kind of stress in children, they tend to manifest illnesses that only we adults are supposed to experience. According to Dr. Gross, many children who feel that kind of pressure from parents tend to wet their beds, have difficulty sleeping or other problems related to stress in children. Dr. Gross adds that one big problem about rushing your kids through childhood is that if they fail to live up to our expectations, they become so wracked with anxiety that performing becomes even more difficult. Worse, they tend to equate their performance with the love they get from their parents, and begin thinking they are a disappointment to them if they fail.
Let kids be kids
I have always believed that we all should let kids be kids, and by that I mean we should let them play—a lot. Few things in childhood are as important as playtime, after all. Play helps reduce stress in children, triggers their creativity, and most importantly of all, makes them happy. While I still believe that teaching your children a few things beyond their years is all right, the important thing is that you should not let it reach a point where you are actually rushing your kids through childhood. Let us respect their childhood, and just let kids be kids. They are, after all, very much entitled to it.
Read the full article here.
