The Wounded Child: How To Understand That You Need To Change Your Methods
“You thought parenting would be easy peasy lemon squeezy, but it’s actually difficult lemon difficult.“
- The Daily Dad
That is what we call totally relatable. Parenting is not about feeding, changing diapers, and giving a roof to live under only. As it turns out, parenting is about building up an individual as well. That is where the difficult difficult lemon difficult part kicks in.
Since our childhood affects our future behavior drastically, there is one thing we want you to remember. The way you treat your child and the way you treat other people (your spouse, a friend, or a pet even) is the bricks you are building the socio-emotional skills of your child with. Your parenting will influence your child’s ability to give and receive love, to find friends, to react to challenges, and to solve problems.
A lot of parents started to realize this now and it is something that psychology can be proud of. However, even when we are trying our best and wish only the greatest things for our child, it still can occur that we are hurting them.
There are a lot of reasons for that. For instance, maybe you have never had an example of a good parent, or you are not really into being a parent, or you do toxic things without even realizing it. No matter what the reason is, we can fix this!
So we prepared signs of a wounded child that will help you to understand that you need to change your methods.
Attention-Seeking Behavior
Does it happen a lot that your child cries or whines when they want something? Do they start screaming in public when you have a nice chat with your friends? Do they try to irritate you purposefully while you are working?
Those are the signs of attention-seeking behavior. While it is considered to be normal as a part of child’s development or sign of the lack of rules, try to look deeper. Maybe you do actually forget to give your child attention after all. Such type of behavior can be your child’s cry for help. Since they are not able to form properly that they lack warmth and emotional connection in your relationship, they play tricks on you. Ask yourself these questions:
- How much time do you spend on your phone daily?
- What was the last time you played with your child?
- Does it happen often that you talk to someone while playing with your child?
You will guess if your child lacks attention after answering these. The solution to the problem is in the questions too!
If it is not the case, then try to learn to deal with the attention-seeking behavior of your child.
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A Child Has Low Self-Esteem
Actually, it is a group of signs under one headline. The low self-esteem of your child shows in many ways:
- they avoid challenges and new tasks that they never tried before. It means, your child is afraid of failure
- they insult others
- they give up immediately after they see that they are going to fail
- they cheat when they know that they will do poorly otherwise
- they are very self-critical
- they do not notice praise and have hard times after being criticized
- they care too much about what other people will think.
There are more signs actually but those are major ones. To help your child to love themselves again, try to notice and praise their little achievements, do not forget to tell them you are proud of them. Encouraging is the best way to fight the fear of failure.
Overall, just make sure that your child knows that they are doing great and that they are worthy.
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They Get Panicky When You Touch Them
Sadly enough, some parents still believe that using a bit of violence from time to time will not hurt anyone. Moreover, children understand things better in such a way or sometimes it is not possible to explain yourself differently.
That is nonsense. Even the smallest acts of violence affect your child deeply. Raising your hand or showing your fist are treated as violence too! By bulling your child, you harm their emotional, psychological, and physical development. There is a high risk that your child will become a bully themselves or will be bullied constantly. It may also lead to drug problems and an inability to build a healthy relationship in the future.
Try to express your dissatisfaction with words. If you feel that you are about to hurt your child, go to another room, calm yourself, count to ten and continue the talk afterward.
They Are Anxious and Indecisive
You are giving yourself to the fullest while guiding your child through life. You give a piece of valuable advice and help them with the smallest problems.
However, it is not right. We do understand that you are trying to be a good example and a perfect guide but it actually hurts your child. They think that they are not capable of doing a thing properly. When they face with any decision, they look at your direction since they think anything that they choose on their own is wrong.
Children need some space and mistakes to grow and to understand their thoughts and feelings without the help of others. Guidance is all good until you are showing your upper hand all the time and do not provide your child with space to breathe.
Another major reason for anxiety is that you are being inconsistent in your parenting. One day you show all your love and support, and you scream or neglect the child on the next day. You spend the whole evening explaining why it is important to fold the clothes. Nevertheless, you fold their clothes by yourself within 10 minutes.
It leads to the constant change of surroundings and concepts that is extremely stressful for adults. And those are kids who have just started to form their psyche we are talking about here.
Our signs of a wounded child and tips on how to avoid parenting that leads to them will not make you a perfect parent. However, they will definitely help you to become a better one. Putting some efforts into becoming a good parent is an investment in the future of your child. We believe you want it to be the great one!
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