Sometimes fatherhood surpasses us. Sometimes we are "up to the hat." Sometimes we need to vent and we give way to this discomfort ... complaining: that if the child does not pay attention, that if he is a clueless, look how tired it is to be a mother or father ... Complaints Complaining has its usefulness, but also a lot of negative consequences, especially if we complain about our children and worse if we do it in front of them.
When we complain about our son
There are those who make the complaint a lifestyle. There are those who believe that saying this or that of your child to third parties can be funny ... But the reality is that it is something unpleasant that can have consequences in the child.
No, it's not that we can't express what we feel now. I explain: verbalizing what we do not like or that makes us feel bad is positive: keeping things was never a good strategy (what is kept under the carpet at the end becomes a mountain with which we will stumble yes or yes) .
But from there to format a complaint and more to do it in front of the children themselves, there is a stretch ... An unhealthy stretch.
When a child hears his parents complain about him, he experiences it as a total and absolute failure, because the fact that something negative is being spoken about him and that, in addition, we are transmitting it to third parties, makes the negative effect of criticism (because this is a criticism) be empowered.
They will feel ridiculed and what is worse, they won't understand why dad or mom say that about them. The learning power of explaining things to them and showing them what we expect them to do is completely diluted when what we do is complain. The complaint is somewhat empty at the functional level, but full at the level of negative consequences.
We will try to put ourselves in his place to imagine how they should feel when we do this:
Imagine you are in a meeting with many people. There are your friends, coworkers, family ... And then you hear how your partner, your mother or your best friend, talks to others about the disaster you are with punctuality and how tired you are of being late. Everyone looks at you while that person narrates a whole repertoire of times when your unpunctuality has bothered him. And you without being able to speak. How would you feel?
Reflection: Wouldn't it seem more productive, more respectful and healthier for your emotions, if that person told you this in private and gave you the opportunity to explain and change your behavior? Well that's what we do many times with our children when we complain about them ... in front of them.
Neither in private nor in public
Yes, just in the previous paragraph I said that it is better to talk about this in private, but beware, that is where the key is: it is one thing to talk privately with our son, educate, give him information about how we have felt in a given moment about his behavior ... and another very different is to complain about him.
The complaint gives no option for the child to learn anything positive, it directly becomes a receiver, an object of criticism, and that is very, very, little recommended.
As parents we want our children to be autonomous, have good self-esteem and be able to manage their lives, right? Well, complain about them, in public or in private. It is a strategy that goes exactly the opposite direction.
As a child, if I have to hear how they complain about me without being able to do anything ...
- I will learn that I have to stay still while they criticize me.
- That it is possible that he who criticizes me is right.
- That your opinion is important and that it measures my worth ...
- ... and I will assume that I have to endure it, without complaining.
Is this what we want our children to learn?
And if that weren't enough, besides it teaches them a strategy that doesn't work:
If the children see us complain they will assume it as a useful behavior, and they will replicate it. If we complain about the work system, they will complain about school, if we complain about the traffic jam they will complain about the long time we have been in the super queue ... And do you really think it is productive for them? Does it help them to complain or does it just make them feel worse?
The complaint is not positive for us either
Verbalizing our discomfort, saying it out loud, is a healthy thing. Keeping what makes us feel bad only serves to enhance it and to generate an increasingly larger “emotional snowball”, with more and more frustration.
The couple, the work, our children ... every day is complicated and there are times, as I said, that we need to "let go". Well, nothing happens for it.
However, it is one thing to outsource our discomfort and another is to complain without filters. The complaint, when it is just that, complaint, on the air, is somewhat non-functional, it does not help us at all. We might think that it helps us to let off steam, okay, right, verbalizing is always positive, but ...
On many occasions behind a complaint what is there is a real demand, a need that must be met. The problem is that complaining about our son, a child who has no capacity to understand or manage that complaint, only manages to harm him. Because no, our little one is not going to change her behavior just because she has heard us complain.
So next time stop and take a minute before complaining. Does the thing have a solution? What can we do to improve the situation? Think for a moment about the impact your words will have on your child. Do we pass the complaint? Bravo!
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In Babies and more: Stop trying to control everything: it is not good for you or your child
