Family Life Education Series
How your perception can affect your children

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What do you think about your child? That should be much more than just a casual question for parents to contemplate because the answer determines the future of your child. There are four important reasons for this being so. First, parents who do not understand their children's strengths, potentials, weaknesses, personality, problems or needs, often misunderstand, neglect or mismanage them. Potentials remain undeveloped, weaknesses overlooked, problems unsolved, and needs unmet, etc.

Second, perception is reality. Children are immature and hence invariably experience emotional difficulties or misbehave at times. When they do, the parents' perception defines not only the situation or problem but also the children themselves. For example, given the same boy in tantrum, one parent may perceive and hence describe him as 'He is playing me up. He is rebellious. He is bad'. Another may say instead, 'He is immature. He is innocent. He needs to be comforted'.

Third, it follows, perception controls reality. How parents interact with their children depends heavily on the 'reality' they perceive. If they perceive their children as naughty and rebellious, they are likely to scold and punish. If they perceive them as immature and innocent, they are likely to comfort and support. Both courses of actions aim to control the situations, problems and in the end, the children themselves. The results may appear superficially to be quite similar. The situations are controlled; the problems seem to be solved; and children become settled. However, the effects on children vary widely. Children who are told they are bad and who are punished often become resentful. They feel misunderstood and unloved. Children who are comforted and supported feel loved.

Fourth, it further follows, perception creates reality. Children whom their parents have repeatedly misunderstood and who are repeatedly told they are no good become what their parents think of them. They grow up to become adults with low self-esteem, emotional problems, bad habits, poor drive, and even delinquent behaviour. Children who are told they are good and brought up accordingly, grow up to become adults with good self-esteem, confidence, strong drive and healthy habits.

This is why it is so crucial that we understand our children positively, deeply and fully. Our perception affects our attitude, words and behaviour to them. These in turn become the instruments of a very powerful self-fulfilling prophecy: we can turn our children into the kind of adults we 'prophecy' they will become. To be successful parents we must understand our children and the understanding must not only be true but also positive.