Would you say that the ‘Sri Lankan’ way of parenting, involves criticizing your child and asking questions later. Do we bombard our children with multiple interrogative questions like ‘Why did you do this?’ or ‘Why didn’t you do that?’..

I would say hand on heart I am guilty of such behavior. It is my instinctive reaction to shout ‘in my not so nice voice’ why for the umpteenth time my daughter can’t pick things off the floor or why my son has to take apart every toy that he is given. I am a mother if I see fault in my children I am first to raise the red flag, give the stare and engage in some intense verbose questioning. It’s exhausting and sometimes I wonder is it worth it.

Is my constant criticizing doing more damage than good? Inwardly I am in a bad mood with the constant ‘parental police-ing’ and I worry about my children’s level of self-esteem, to constantly have their mother tell them in her ‘not so nice voice’ they are wrong.

How to Criticize your child positively

Children have feelings

This is a very important fact to remember. Having nurtured your child from when he or she was a baby it is hard for us to distinguish them as separate individuals. Avoid using loaded questions like’ What a stupid thing to do’ or ‘Your baby sister behaves better than you’. We are all guilty of such intense interrogating but try and not use words as your weapons, despite how upset you are. We would never in a million years insult a stranger for the worry of hurting their feelings, so why start with your children?

Have a clear message

Avoid the ‘rant’ just because you are upset with them and you want to vent out your feelings. Be clear in your communication and explain to them the behavior that it expected of them. If such uncalled for behavior continues then resort to strict discipline, but before that don’t dwell in a half an hour of ranting and raving about the family reputation and what will people think etc.

Constructive Criticism

Try and address your child’s behavior rather than verbally attack your child. Also try and avoid labelling your child that later others in the family will pick up and tease them off. ‘Oh, you are the slow one’, this might be your way of encouraging your child to be quick but instead it will be ingrained in their heads that they are slow and their self-esteem will suffer thoroughly as the get older.

No public criticism

Never criticize your child in public. It will be hard for your child to bear the criticism as well as the public humiliation and embarrassment would be a tragedy of two-fold for your child to bear. The message will be lost for they will feel instead that their parents have abandoned them to publicly humiliate them.

Change your parenting style

If you are constantly let down by your children’s behavior then re-evaluate your own expectations, Have you set too high a limit. Does your child really need to have proper table manners by the time they are three, they are children after all. Look at other outside factors that might affect your child, despite your changes in your modes of correcting. In this way adapt your parenting style till you achieve your expectations. You might be wrong and you will have to accept that and change along the way.

Whatever the situation, always show your love as a parent is unconditional, they could be two or twenty but make sure that message is safely etched in their hearts as well as their heads.

So therefore to not criticize is also bad, if you feel that you are guilty of all I have mentioned before. Relax, infact, congratulations you are a very involved parent, which is an excellent quality to have, you just have to fine tune the way you show your love and worry. Happy Parenting!

By Mayuri Jayasinghe