Why You Should Never Compare Your Children

Once a parent, always a parent! We worry, fret, scream, cry at the drop of a hat and make up too. Because we love our child immensely, it is natural that we expect her/him to hit the developmental milestones like any other child of the same age. We often set arbitrary expectations and get disappointed when they are not met by our child.

Shouldn’t she start teething at 6 months? Shouldn’t a child start walking by 1? Shouldn’t she start forming words by 2? These are questions that set behavioral expectations from the children. But have we ever tried to understand the whats and whys behind two children being so different and also how our expectation can hurt our child.

No two children are the same

Commonly, when parents find early developmental symptoms in their children, they tend to attribute it to intelligence and good parenting. Sadly, it is neither. Every child is distinct and develops differently. Their physical and social ability, ability to perform a task properly and attention levels are always different. Also, every child develops at a different pace. A child is a mix of nature and nurture. Nature is the intrinsic qualities that the child is gifted with while nurture is the role the parents play in the upbringing of the child. There is also a third factor that comes into play where development is concerned and that is the environment he or she is exposed to. It is important to understand that children absorb from their environment which explains why day care kids are sometime better regulated in their schedules against children who are pampered by grandparents at home. To sum it, it is impossible to have a situation where two children have the exact matches of all 3 factors, and therefore each child is unique.

Why we shouldn’t compare our child

Being competitive can result in serious problems in your relationship with your child. By constantly comparing the little ones to others put a lot of stress on the child for incorrect reasons. And, when children fail to meet expectations, parent’s behavior towards them changes and often result in children getting scared, stressed and intimidated.

We often come across situations where often a child does or does not do, things, just so as to please her parents. This unexplainable behavior can be attributed to a similar situation where our expectations are so high from our children, that they do things to just meet the expectations rather than enjoy themselves. The other way children react when unrealistic expectations are enforced on them is by avoiding the job or getting irritable. This pulls them off and also kills their skill and talent.

Be patient and trust your child

Thus, as a parent, the best idea is not to think too much about your children attaining milestones but focus on trying to do what’s valuable.

• If your child resists some activity, take a few days off (and give the child a break as well) and gradually work with your child to your desired behavior levels, after the gap. 
• Get generous with your words of praise and constantly encourage while raising a confident child. 
• Extra dosage of patience, affection and adequate quality time can surprisingly produce excellent results.