Creating a mini-self with children is harmful
Do not, your son can not be your "mini-me". No matter how much you have your eyes, your smile, your gestures or your tastes, your child has a personality of its own and parents should never try to build small copies of ourselves. This hurts them. So says the director of one of the most prestigious schools in the United Kingdom, Wellington College.
In particular, Sir Anthony Seldon says that parents are "clueless narcissists" who They harm their children with their "delusions" when they want the little ones to look like them. In summary: the son of a doctor does not necessarily have to be a doctor, even if his grandfather was also a doctor.
This is different from the fact that we parents must set an example: it is one thing to be models for our children, and another to impose them to do exactly what we do. They have their personality, and they should develop according to it, always with the education and support of the family, especially the parents.
Also, Seldon has commented in Insight magazine that parents should "be educated" so that they learn to work together with schools to educate their children: this duty is not only of one or the other, but of both pillars of children's childhood.
"Parents have to be parents from the beginning"
The words of the director of the prestigious center are very clear: "Parents need to be parents from the beginning. The expression 'parents helicopter' is an excuse for schools to expel them. We need to educate parents about good parenting and work together to educate children, "according to the Telegraph newspaper, which echoed the words of this important education expert.
Seldon is also sharp when talking about the function of schools: according to him, the preparation for the exams is only 25 percent of the work of the educational centers, while 75 percent should be dedicated to helping children develop intellectually, emotionally, psychologically and artistically. "Y we need parents to understand their role in this process ", he points out in some interesting words to reflect on.
All in all, it's realistic: being a father is not easy, we do not have "the keys of what it is to be a good father", which is why he urges governments and schools to "be clear about what it is to be a good father." For example, for this expert a "poor father" is not the one who does not have money, but the one who prevents the independence of his son and who wants him to become a "mini Me"Instead of letting the child be what he wants to be, the sense of development and autonomy of their children", warns severe.
Living through the children, a big mistake
On this has also been pronounced an acquaintance of the British educational scene: the director of the Eton School, Tony Little, who alert of the increase of parents who live through their children, that is, they convey their ambitions and what they would have liked to do to their small offspring.
In this sense, he assures that the parents seem to have something like "a results template", so that When children do not adjust to what their parents would have wanted, stress appears for both: for the child for not meeting the expectations of their parents, and for these to see that they do not get what they want.
This stress is also linked the exams Already in another article in this magazine we have spoken of several studies that warn about the too many pressures to which children from Western countries such as the United Kingdom or Spain are exposed.
In the British country there are few who are rising against continuous examsespecially to children, ensuring that governments are "obsessed" with exam results and have "a mistaken belief that a child with a good score on an exam will have a very good paid job".
For the directors of these two prestigious educational centers, however, there is another factor that is much more determining future children's work that the results in the exams: your well being, This will determine their study when they leave school and how they will face the world of work.
Angela R. Bonachera
